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BOOKS BY JAMES B. CONNOLLY 

Published by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



THE U-BOAT HUNTERS. Illustrated net $1.50 

RUNNING FREE. Illustrated . . . net 1.50 

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THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 




" Where you-all going ? 



Can't you-all see where you're going ? 



Keep off — keep off. 



[Page 117J 



THE 
U-BOAT HUNTERS 



BY 
JAMES B. CONNOLLY 

'I 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1918 






r 



Copyright, 1906, 1918, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



Published June, 1918 



Copyright, wie. 1917, 1918, by p. f. collier & son, incorporated 




1> 50 



-JUL - 

499530 
o I 



FOREWORD 

What a great thing if we could do away 
with war ! 

But men are not cast in that mould. We 
shall continue to have wars; and some day 
the world is going to have a war to which the 
present will serve only as a try-out. 

When that war comes our country will prob- 
ably have to bear the burden for the western 
hemisphere. In that war our navy will be 
our first line of defense; and what we do for 
our navy now will have much to do with what 
our navy will be able to do for us then. 

Our navy to-day is made up of good ships 

and capable, courageous, hard-working officers 

and men. There are some fuddy-duddies and 

politicians among them, but most of them are 

on the job every minute. Their highest hope 

is the chance to serve their country. The 

chapters in this book which tell of their U-boat 

hunting only prove once more their great 

qualities. 

v 



vi FOREWORD 

There are chapters in this book which have 
nothing to do with U-boat hunting, but have 
much to do with the navy. Such are the two 
opening chapters and the three closing chap- 
ters. The motive of four of those chapters 
will probably be obvious; the chapter on the 
workings of a submarine is included in the 
hope of interesting our young fellows in that 
type of craft. 

The need of such a chapter? Take this 
illustration of what people do not know about 
submarines: Three years ago an admiral on 
the other side was called into conference on 
the U-boat problem. When it came his turn 
to speak he said: "Gentlemen, it is child's talk 
to say that the U-boats will ever amount to 
anything! Disregard them utterly!" Only 
three years ago that was, and that naval 
officer was considered for commander-in-chief 
of the Grand Fleet! Three years ago, and 
last year the U-boats sank 6,600,000 tons of 
shipping ! 

Right now Germany probably contemplates, 
or is actually constructing, U-boats with armor 
and guns heavy enough to engage on the sur- 
face any war craft up to the battle-cruiser 



FOREWORD vii 

class. How far from that to fighting the 
heaviest of surface craft— even to the battle- 
ships ? 

In the event of invasion— we might as well 
face that; refusing to think about it certainly 
will not eliminate the possibility, — in the 
event of invasion by a powerful foe our first 
line of defense will be our navy. The navy 
will always be our first line of defense; and so 
the need to-day of interesting in our navy 
young men,— progressive young men, who will 
learn from the past but prefer to live in the 

future. 

J. B. C. 



CONTENTS 




NAVY SHIPS 


PAGE 

I 


NAVY MEN 


12 


SEEING THEM ACROSS 


24 


THE U-BOATS APPEAR 


37 


CROSSING THE CHANNEL 


58 


THE CENSORS 


11 


ONE THEY DIDNT GET 


92 


THE DOCTOR TAKES CHARGE 


108 


THE 343 STAYS UP 


127 


THE CARGO BOATS 


142 


FLOTILLA HUMOR— AT SEA 


157 


FLOTILLA HUMOR— ASHORE 


172 



x CONTENTS 

PAGE 

THE UNQUENCHABLE DESTROYER 

BOYS 1 86 

THE MARINES HAVE LANDED 204 

THE NAVY AS A CAREER 222 

THE SEA BABIES 239 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

"Where you-all going? . . . Can't you-all see where 

you're going? Keep off — keep off" . Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 

She shoved out into the stream and kicked her way 
down the harbor, and as she did so . . . every- 
body seemed to know 26 

Our thirty-knot clip was eating up the road. We 

were getting near the spot 98 

In the engine-room of a submarine 242 



NAVY SHIPS 

MORE than one-third of our naval force 
was being reviewed by the President. 
A most impressive assembly of men- 
o'-war it was, in tonnage and weight of metal 
the greatest ever floated by the waters of the 
western hemisphere. 

The last of the fleet had arrived on the night 
before. From the bluffs along the shore they 
might have been seen approaching with a mys- 
terious play of lights across the shadowy waters. 
In the morning they were all there. Hardly a 
type was lacking — the last 1 6,000-ton double- 
turreted battleship, the protected and heavy- 
armored cruisers, monitors, despatch-boats, gun- 
boats, destroyers, attendant transport, and sup- 
ply ships. Fifty ships, 1,200 guns, 16,000 men: 
all were there, even to the fascinating little sub- 
marines with their round black backs just show- 
ing above the water. 

It was that chromatic sort of a morning 
when the canvas of the sailing-boats stands 
out startlingly white against the drizzly sky and 



2 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

the smoke from the stacks of the steamers 
takes on an accented coal-black, and, drooping, 
trails low in a murky wake. Rather a dull 
setting at this early hour; but not sufficiently 
dull to check the vivacity of the actors in the 
scene. 

The President comes up the side of the 
Mayflower and, arrived at the head of the 
gangway, stands rigid as any stanchion to at- 
tention while his colors are shot to the truck 
and the scarlet-coated band plays the national 
hymn. Then, ascending to the bridge, he 
takes station by the starboard rail with the 
Secretary of the Navy at his shoulder. The 
clouds roll away, the sun comes out, and all is 
as it should be while he prepares to review the 
fleet, which thereafter responds aboundingly 
to every burst of his own inexhaustible en- 
thusiasm. 

And this fleet, which is lying to anchor in 
three lines of four miles or so each in length, 
with a respectful margin of clear water all 
about, is, viewed merely as a marine pageant, 
magnificent; as a display of potential fighting 
power, most convincing. No man might look 
on it and his sensibilities — admiration, patri- 



NAVY SHIPS 3 

otism, respect, whatever they might be — re- 
main unstirred. To witness it is to pass in 
mental review the great fleets of other days 
and inevitably to draw conclusions. Beside 
this armament the ill-destined Armada, Von 
Tromp's stubborn squadrons, Nelson's walls of 
oak, or Farragut's steam and sail would dis- 
solve like the glucose squadrons that boys buy 
at Christmas time. Even Dewey's workman- 
like batteries (this to mark the onward rush of 
naval science) would be rated obsolete beside 
the latest of these ! 

It was first those impressive battleships; 
and bearing down on them one better saw 
what terrible war-engines they are. Big guns 
pointing forward, big guns pointing astern, 
long-reaching guns abeam, and little business- 
looking machine-guns in the tops — their mere 
appearance suggests their ponderous might. 
A single broadside from any of these, properly 
placed, and there would be an end to the most 
renowned flag-ships of wooden-fleet days. And 
that this frightful power need never wait on 
wind or tide, nor be hindered in execution by 
any weather much short of a hurricane, is as- 
sured when we note that to-day, while the 



4 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

largest of the excursion steamers are heaving 
to the whitecaps, these are lying as immova- 
ble almost as sea-walls. 

It is, first, the flag-ship which thunders 
out her greeting — one, two, three — twenty-one 
smoke-wreathed guns — while her sailormen, 
arm to shoulder, mark in unwavering blue the 
lines of deck and superstructure. Meantime the 
officers on the bridge, admiral in the foreground, 
are standing in salute; and in the intervals of 
gun-fire there are crashing out over the waters 
again the strains of the "Star Spangled Banner." 
And the flag-ship left astern, the guns of the 
next in line boom out, and on her also the band 
plays and men and officers stand to attention; 
and so the next, and next. And, the battle- 
ships passed, come the armored cruisers, riding 
the waters almost as ponderously as the bat- 
tleships and hardly less powerful, but much 
faster on the trail; and they may run or fight 
as they please. After examining them, long 
and swift-looking, with no more space between 
decks than is needed for machinery, stores, 
armament, and lung-play for live men, the in- 
evitable reflection recurs that the advance of 
mechanical power must color our dreams of ro- 



NAVY SHIPS S 

mance in future. Surely the old ways are gone. 
Imagine one of the old three-deckers aiming to 
work to windward of one of these in a gale, 
and if by any special dispensation of Provi- 
dence she was allowed to win the weather 
berth, imagine her trying, while she rolled 
down to her middle deck, to damage one of 
these belted brutes, who meantime would be 
leisurely picking out the particular plank by 
which she intended to introduce into her 
enemy's vitals a weight of explosive metal 
sufficient in all truth to blow her out of water. 
After the cruisers passed the craft of com- 
paratively small tonnage and power follow — 
the gunboats, transports, and supply ships; 
and, almost forgotten, the monitors, riding un- 
disturbedly, like squat little forts afloat, with 
freeboard so low that with a slightly undulat- 
ing sea a turtle could swim aboard. And after 
them the destroyers, which look their name. 
Most wicked inventions; no shining brasswork 
nor holy-stoned quarter, no decorative and 
convenient companionway down the side — no 
anything that doesn't make for results. Ugly, 
wicked-looking, with hooded ports from under 
which peer the muzzles of long-barrelled weap- 



6 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

ons that look as if they were designed for the 
single business of boring, and boring quickly, 
holes in steel plate. 

So the Mayflower steams down the four long 
lines in review; and always the batteries and 
bands in action, the immortal hymn echoing 
out like rolling thunder between the flame-lit 
broadsides. From shore to shore the cannon 
detonate and our fighting blood is stirred. On 
the pleasure craft skirting the line of pickets 
like vaguely outlined picture boats in the dim, 
perspective haze, the people seem also to be 
stirred. We dream of the glory of battle; but 
better than that, the hymn which has stirred 
men to some fine deeds in the past, and shall 
to just as brave in the future, mounts like a 
surging tide to our hearts: 

"Oh, say, can you see?" 

it is asking. And we can see — no need of the 
glass — ahead, astern, abeam, aloft, some thou- 
sands of them streaming in the fresh west wind, 
and within signal distance of their beautiful 
waving folds a multitude of men and women 
in whom the sense of patriotism must have be- 



NAVY SHIPS 7 

come immeasurably deepened for being within 
call this day. 

The vibration of brass and pipe, the music 
and the saluting, one ship and the next, and 
never the welcome of one died out before the 
tumult of the next began. It was like the 
ceaseless roar of the ever-rolling ocean, with 
never an instant when the ear-drum did not 
vibrate to the salute of cannon, the blood tingle 
to the call of the nation's hymn. One felt 
faith in ships and crews after it^ and later, 
when in the cabin of the Mayflower the ad- 
mirals and captains gathered, to meet them and 
to listen was to feel anew the assurance that 
this navy will be ready when the hour comes 
to do whatever may be deemed right and well 
by the people. 

The admirals and the attaches having de- 
parted and dinner become a thing of the past, 
it was time to review the electric-light display. 

We were almost abreast of the first in line, 
and she was like a ship from fairyland. Along 
her run the bulbed lights extended, and thence 
to her turrets, and, higher up, followed the out- 
line of stacks and tops and masts, with floating 



8 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

strings of them suspended here and there be- 
tween. Most striking of all, her name in gi- 
gantic, flaming letters faced forward from her 
bridge. Now one ship decked in a multiplicity 
of jewels on this clear calm night would have 
been a beautiful sight — but where there were 
forty-odd of them ! 

It was a sailor of the fleet, lurking in the 
shifting shadows of the bridge, that he might 
enjoy his surreptitious cigarette and not suffer 
disratement therefor, who reviewed the illu- 
minations most illuminingly. "Man, but they 
do blaze out, don't they ? They make me think 
of the post-cards we used to buy in foreign 
ports. You held them up before the light and 
they came out shining like a Christmas-tree. 
But no ships of cards these — and that's the 
wonderful thing, too. Seeing them to-day, 
with their batteries in view, 'twas enough to 
put the fear o' God in a man's heart, and now 
look at them — like a child's dream of heaven 
— that is, if we don't sheer too close and see 
that the guns are still there. And, look now, 
the tricks they're at!" 

Outlined in incandescents, the semaphores 
of a dozen ships were being worked most in- 



NAVY SHIPS 9 

dustriously. "Jerk up and down like the legs 
and arms of the mechanical dolls at the theatre, 
don't they ? But these here could be dancing 
for something more than the people's amuse- 
ment if 'twas necessary. And what are they 
saying ? Oh, most likely it's 'The compliments 
of the admiral, and will you come aboard the 
flag-ship and try a taste of punch?' And 
'With pleasure,' that other one is saying. 
And they'll be lowering away the launch and 
no doubt be having a pleasant chat presently. 
And they could just as easily be saying (if 
'twas the right time), 'Pipe to quarters and 
load with shell' — just as easy; and they could 
revolve the near turret of that one, and ten 
seconds after they cut loose you and me, if we 
weren't already killed by rush of air, would be 
brushing the salt water from our eyes and claw- 
ing around for a stray piece of wreckage to 
hang on to. Just as easy — but look at 'em 
now again!" 

The search-lights were paralleling and in- 
tersecting, now revealing the perpendicular 
depths beside the vessel, and now flooding the 
sky. Twenty of them, simultaneously flash- 
ing, were sweeping the surface of the Sound, 



io THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

one instant outlining the arbored Long Island 
shore, the next betraying the beaches of Con- 
necticut. One, beaming westerly, disclosed a 
loaded excursion steamer half-way to Hell 
Gate, and, a moment later, turning a hand- 
spring, picked up in its diverging path the Fall 
River steamer miles away to the eastward. 

"The torpedo-boats'd have the devil's own 
time trying to lay aboard to-night, wouldn't 
they ? And yet if 'twas cloudy 'twould be the 
submarines ! Did you see them to-day ? 
Weren't they cute — like little whale pups set- 
ting on the water — yes. They say they've 
got them where they turn somersaults now. 
Great, yes — but terrible, too, when you think 
they're liable to come your way some fine day. 
Imagine yourself, all at once, some night when 
you ought to be sound asleep in your ham- 
mock, finding yourself, afore you're yet fair 
awake, so high in the sky that you can almost 
reach out and take hold of the handle of the 
Dipper ! And when you come down and get 
the official report, learning that one of those 
cute little playthings had been making a sub- 
aqueous call. 

"It's ninety-odd years since the American 



NAVY SHIPS ii 

navy proved it could do a good job; for, of 
course, none of us count Spain, who wasn't 
ready to begin with, and wasn't our size, any- 
way. And yet, we mightn't make out so bad 
'gainst a bigger enemy at that. Our fellows 
can shoot, that's sure. There's a gun crew in 
this ship we're breasting now, and I saw them 
awhile ago put eight 1 2-inch shot in succession 
through that regulation floating target we use, 
and it was as far away as the farther end of 
that line of cruisers there, and the target was 
bobbing up and down, and we steaming by at 
10 knots an hour. Not too bad — hah ? And 
a hundred crews like 'em in the navy. That's 
for the shooting." 

He flicked the end of another fleeting ciga- 
rette over the rail. "Yes, the American navy 
has fought pretty well, and this navy, no fear, 
will fight too. There's more different kinds of 
people in it than ever before, they say — though 
as to that I guess there were always more kinds 
of people in the navy than the historians ever 
gave credit for. Now it's all kinds like the 
nation itself, I suppose. And that ought to 
make for good fighting, don't you think ? 



NAVY MEN 

THE foregoing occasion was the first 
of several naval spectacles staged by- 
Theodore Roosevelt during his presi- 
dency to show the public that we had a grow- 
ing navy, and not too small a navy, and a navy 
that, ship for ship, need ask for no odds in its 
equipment at least. 

More than any President we ever had did 
Theodore Roosevelt work for a big navy. To 
no President before him in our country did 
the prospect of a great European war loom so 
near; a war which meant our participation, 
not so much through any will of our people as 
by the pressure of happenings from the other 
side. 

Hence, the need of the country for as large 
a navy as we could get together. With an eye 
for this future need President Roosevelt asked 
for 4 battleships a year. There were men 
in Congress who believed that to talk of war 
was foolish; there would be no more war; so, 
instead of 4, Congress gave him 2, and the 

12 



NAVY MEN 13 

famous "big stick" had to come into play be- 
fore they gave him even the two. 

During these years I had the privilege from 
President Roosevelt of cruising on United States 
war-ships — gunboats, destroyers, cruisers, bat- 
tleships (later, through the good offices of Secre- 
tary Daniels, I became acquainted with sub- 
marines and navy airplanes). 

The war-ships were an interesting study, and 
the life aboard a war-ship then was even more 
interesting, for after all, men, not materials, 
were the chief thing. Almost any fairly well- 
trained bunch of mechanics will turn out a 
pretty good machine to order. But there is no 
turning out good men to order; only good- 
living generations can do that. 

If it was a matter of machinery alone, then 
the Prussian idea would have this war already 
won. But that alone cannot prevail, can never 
prevail for the long run. It is the spirit which 
must win. 

The personnel of the navy, officers and men, 
seemed always so much more interesting to 
me, that for one hour I spent in looking over 
ship equipment, I probably spent forty in ob- 
serving the men; and when you are locked up 



i 4 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

in ships for weeks or months with a lot of men 
you must, where your heart and mind are not 
closed, come away in time with some sort of 
knowledge of them. 

And what sort are they ? 

Well, they are nearly all young — average age 
about twenty-one years; and they come from 
anywhere and everywhere — from the farms, the 
prairies, the corners of city streets; and they 
have been many things — farm-hands, carpen- 
ters, mechanics, barbers, trolley-car men, clerks, 
street loafers, college boys. Some are terribly 
sophisticated in worldly ways and some so 
green, of course, that the wags have frequent 
chances to keep their wits on edge. Some have 
come with the plain notion that if a fellow has 
got to fight, why then the navy offers the most 
comfortable outlook for a fellow — during this 
war it especially offers it — dry hammock every 
night, no mud, no cooties, and three hot meals 
at regular intervals — but many are there with 
the bright hope of some day pointing a 14-inch 
gun and sending a relay of 1,400-pound shells 
where they will blow something foreign and 
opposing high as the flying clouds. 

Blowing up ships and people may have once 



NAVY MEN 15 

seemed a terrible idea, but a few weeks in the 
community of a war-ship with its matter-of- 
fact, professional manner of discussing such 
subjects soon brings them around to common, 
seagoing notions of the matter. 

Four years ago at Vera Cruz our modern 
navy had its first taste of war. It was only a 
light touch of war, and there was no doubt of 
the outcome; but in little affairs men may be 
tried out, too. Through somebody's blunder, 
for which somebody should have been jacked-up, 
our bluejackets were sent up in solid sections 
to occupy a large open area on the Vera Cruz 
water-front. Standing there in solid columns, 
not knowing just what was going to happen, 
but feeling to a certainty that something stir- 
ring was going to happen, and to happen soon, 
they stood there grinning widely and waiting 
for the ball to open. It may have been their 
childish innocence, it may have been their 
untutored ignorance, but when that sheeted 
rifle fire first burst from the roof of the Naval 
College, and a solid squad or two of our lads 
went down, and following that the snipers 
began to get them in ones and twos and threes 
—when that happened there was no distressing 



16 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

confusion in their ranks. When, later, it be- 
came necessary for the Prairie and Chester to 
fire just over their heads to batter the walls of 
that same War College, it made no difference. 
The ships' gunnery was rapid and excellent — 
they knew it would be — and when the shells 
went whistling through the walls of the second 
story, the marines and bluejackets stood under 
the first story and let them whistle. Plaster 
and bricks from the shaken walls came tum- 
bling down upon them. They ducked beneath 
the falling mortar, some of them, but they all 
took their shells standing. 

They are not the sailors of classic tradition, 
these battleship lads of the twentieth century. 
Every man to the age he lives in — it must be 
so. The old phrase, "Drunk as a sailor," 
meant, in most men's minds, drunk as a man- 
o'-war's man. I was born and brought up in 
a great seaport — Boston — and my earliest 
memories are of loafing days along the harbor 
front and the husky-voiced, roaring fellows 
coming ashore in the pulling boats from the 
men-o'-war; fine, rolling-gaited fellows, in 
from long cruises and flamingly eager to make 
the most of their short liberty. Great-hearted 



NAVY MEN 17 

men, who gave truth to the phrase — "and 
spending his money like a drunken sailor" — 
and knowing, usually, but two inescapable 
obligations — to do his duty aboard ship and 
to stand by a shipmate in trouble ashore. 
Almost any of the old-time policemen of the 
large seaports can tell you many fine tales of 
the riotous hours along the water-front in the 
old days. 

Such is the passing tradition. The present 
lad of the navy is creating a new one. For one 
thing, he no longer gets drunk — that is, he does 
not get drunk by divisions. To illustrate: 

During that greatest steaming stunt in all 
maritime history — the cruise of our sixteen 
battleships with their auxiliaries around the 
world — all naval records were broken in the 
number of enlisted men allowed ashore. Every 
day in large foreign ports saw 4,000 of our 
bluejackets and marines allowed shore liberty. 
Now consider the case of the first foreign port 
where liberty was granted, Rio de Janeiro in 
South America; and what happened in Rio 
was what happened in other ports. 

It was five weeks or more since leaving home, 
and during that five weeks they had been for 



1 8 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

twelve days steaming along one of the hottest 
coasts (Brazil) in all the world — the tropics — 
and it was summer-time once they were south 
of the line; and in all that time no chance for 
an enlisted man to get a drink of any kind of 
liquor — no beer or light wine even — no matter 
what the intensity of the thirst which may have 
possessed him. 

Now he is suddenly thrown ashore with his 
pockets full of money. He has only to go to 
the paymaster and draw pretty much all he 
pleases. By actual figures the men of the 
battle fleet — about 13,000 — drew #200,000 in 
gold to spend ashore in Rio — about #15 a man. 
For five or six weeks not a drop to drink, and 
all at once 4,000 of them thrown daily to roam 
into the midst of 500 grog shops with their 
pockets full of money, and no restrictions placed 
upon them, except one: they must be back to 
their ship that same night ! 

I was a passenger with that battle fleet, and 
night after night I stood on the great stone 
quay in Rio and watched them returning to 
their ships. On no night did I see more than 
forty or fifty who might be said to be "soused"; 
on no night did I see more than a dozen or 



NAVY MEN 19 

fifteen who had to be thrown into the accom- 
modation barge with the "dead ones," the help- 
less ones who were so far gone that they had 
to be carried up the sides of their ships from 
the barge which made the last rounds of the 
fleet. 

Now I would like to make an observation; 
gratuitous, but perhaps of human interest 
and pertinent right here: I think if we took 
4,000 lawyers or doctors or authors " or car- 
drivers or clerks — 4,000 of almost any sort from 
civil life — and locked them up so that for five 
or six weeks in a warm or a cold climate they 
could not get a drink of any kind of liquor, no 
matter how great their fancied or real need; and 
at the end of that five or six weeks took the 
whole 4,000 of them, with their pockets full of 
money, and suddenly threw them into the mid- 
dle of all the grog-shops of a great city — I do 
think that more than forty — that is, one per 
cent of them — would be found "soused" — that 
is, if we had means of locating them all at the 
end of the day. 

The heroic sailor of tradition has passed — 
a sailor of another kind, but just as efficient 
and just as heroic in another way — the way of 



2o THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

his day — is rapidly creating another tradition. 
The lad who in the lusty days of his youth can 
thus hold himself in check is a pretty good 
product of American development. He pretty 
generally passes up the grog-shop, but he visits 
the art galleries, the museums, the cathedrals, 
the K. of C.'s, and Y. M. C. A.'s ashore, takes 
books from the library on shipboard, buys post- 
cards and mails them home to let his friends 
know of the great things in the world. On 
that world cruise referred to the men cleaned 
Rio de Janeiro out of 250,000 post-cards. 

I doubt if many of them, on the first try, 
could lay out on a topsail-yard in a gale of wind 
without immediately falling overboard; but 
they don't have to lay out on topsail-yards 
nowadays. They do have to shoot, however; 
and they can shoot. Lay a gun's crew of them 
behind a big turret-gun and watch them make 
lacework of a target at 11,000 yards. 

The main question is, Have we the spirit 
to-day ? As to that, no man having yet de- 
vised any apparatus wherewith to measure 
energy of soul and mind, it is difficult to prove 
to whoever will not believe, or does not in him- 



NAVY MEN 21 

self possess the germ, the existence of this 
thing that may not be measured by foot-rule 
or bushel basket. The belching of powder and 
the roll of drumhead do not prove it. We can 
always hire men to do that, and to do it well. 
And yet, to be present at the review described 
in the preceding chapter was to experience the 
thrill that may not be measured, to note how 
the enthusiasm of the occasion seemed to be 
animating the crews, to share in the feeling of 
pride which mantled all cheeks, and, ship after 
ship slipping past, to feel that pride of fleet 
intensify, until we echoed the cry of the Com- 
mander-in-Chief, whose enthusiasm for all that 
is good for the nation is unquenchable. As the 
President said, it was a glorious day. 

No doubt of it. Men had met and there 
was kinship in the meeting. From that au- 
spicious opening in the morning when the 
clouds seemed to dissolve for the express pur- 
pose of allowing a fresh-washed sky to enter 
into the color scheme of the beautiful picture 
— blue dome, chalk-white and sea-green war- 
ships, green and blue and white-edged little 
seas — until that last moment at night when 
the last call on the last ship was blown and to 



22 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

its lingering cadence the last unwinking in- 
candescent of the fairy-like illumination was 
switched off, leaving the hushed and darkened 
fleet riding to only the necessary anchor lights 
on the motionless, moon-lit sound — who wit- 
nessed it all might not doubt the existence of 
that spirit which in conflict makes for more 
than thickness of armor or weight of shell. 

We went to war; and it was with an immense 
confidence in what they would do that I heard 
of the sailing of our first group of destroyers 
for the business of convoying ships and hunting 
U-boats on the other side. Ships were up to 
date and officers and men knew their business; 
and there was something more than knowing 
their business. 

Other groups of destroyers followed that 
first one, and a lot of us were wondering how 
they were making out. They had sailed out 
into the Atlantic — that we knew; but what 
were they doing? We who knew them be- 
lieved they were doing well. But how well ? 

I thought it worth while finding out. I 
went to Washington and from Secretary Dan- 
iels and Chief Censor George Creel secured 



NAVY MEN 23 

necessary credentials, and through the War 
Department the word which would put me 
aboard a troop-ship. 

It is only justice to Secretary Daniels to say 
that he granted me all aid even though I told 
him I would probably work for Collier s on the 
trip — for Collier s which had been pounding him 
editorially. 

What I learned of this game of escorting ships 
and hunting U-boats is in the chapters which 
follow. 



SEEING THEM ACROSS 

HE had been on what most anybody 
would agree was pretty trying sort of 
work; and so, having an idea that a 
furlough was coming to him, he applied for it, 
but did not get it. The department had other 
things in view. Instead of going home, he 
took time to write a few letters, printing the 
one to his little girl in big capitals, so that — 
being six going on seven — she might, with 
mama's help, be able to read it. 

They sent him to a ship that had been run- 
ning between north and south ports on our own 
coast, shifting in winter-time to tropical waters. 
She was one of a group of thirty or forty that 
the department had on its little list to be 
made over into transports. She was the hand- 
somest boat, but war makes nothing of beauty. 
Our officer ordered all her gleaming black un- 
derpaint off*, also her pure white topside enam- 
elling with the gold decorations here and there; 
then he swabbed her top and bottom with that 
dull blue-gray which the naval sharps say does 
blend best with a deep-sea background. 

24 



SEEING THEM ACROSS 25 

She had the prettiest little lounging-room. 
Our officers retained that— for even in war 
officers must have some place aboard ship to 
gather for a smoke and gossip— but they threw 
out the large, lovely fat pieces of furniture. 
In case of submarine attack or an order to 
abandon ship, the men might want to make a 
passage of that room in a hurry and no time 
there— in the dark it might be— to be falling 
over chairs and tables. 

There was a sun-parlor, a large, splendid 
room with wide windows and the deck on three 
sides. There were thick draperies, filmy laces, 
and many easy chairs. In the old days cabin 
passengers used to sit there and absorb the 
soft tropic breezes while digesting their break- 
fasts. An army quartermaster-captain sur- 
veyed it with our naval officer. "Swell,' ? said 
the Q. M. C. "We'll haul down that plush 
and fluffy stuff, dump those chairs and rugs 
over the side, plant my desk here, my chief 
clerk's there, my other clerks' desks over there, 
open those fine wide windows and let the north 
Atlantic breezes blow on our beaded brows 
while we're doing our paper work. Fine !" 
Our naval officer did that and a hundred 



26 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

other things to the inside and outside of the 
beautiful ship and reported her fit for transport 
service, or as fit as ever a made-over ship could 
be made to be, whereupon he was ordered to 
take her to such and such a dock in such and 
such a port — which he did. Then many large, 
heavy cases were lowered into her hold, and 
troops and troops and more troops filed aboard 
and took up what was left of the spaces between 
decks with themselves and their war gear. 

She lay then with her water-line a foot deeper 
than anybody around there ever remembered 
seeing her in her swell passenger days; then 
she shoved out into the stream and kicked her 
way down the harbor, and as she did so, though 
there was not a single trooper's head showing 
above her rail, everybody seemed to know. 
Passing tugs, motor-boats, ferry-boats blew 
their whistles — every kind of a boat that had 
a whistle blew it — and there was an excursion 
boat loaded down with women and children. 
Her band had been playing ragtime, but it sud- 
denly stopped and broke into "Good-by, Good 
Luck, God Bless You," to the troop-ship bound 
for France. 

There was a war-ship waiting below — not the 



SEEING THEM ACROSS 27 

biggest by a good deal in our fleet, but big 
enough to have hope one day of firing her 
broadside on the battle-line. But the great 
duty of a war-ship is to be immediately useful. 
She was there, and smaller war-ships with her, 
to see that the troop-ships got protection on 
the run across. 

Our troop-ship, other troop-ships, every one 
in turn, steamed up, reported her presence, and 
tucked into a berth under the wings of the big 
war-ship; and there they stayed until night, 
until the signal came to get under way. When 
it did, one after the other they up-anchored 
and kicked into line. They had been warned 
to make no fuss in going, and they made none. 
From somewhere ashore a great search-light 
swept our top structure, swept every top struc- 
ture as we filed out. Some one on each top 
structure must have given the proper sign, for 
that was all. 

All that night, and next day, for days and 
days thereafter, with shifting formations and 
varying speeds, we steamed. All were good, 
seaworthy ships, but little things will happen. 
There was one that was always lagging. The 
flag-ship, meaning the war-ship of most tonnage, 



28 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

inquired why. The answer came, whereat the 
war-ship of most tonnage showed right there 
that she was fit to do something more than 
furnish long-reaching guns for the fleet's pro- 
tection. 

The next thing the fleet knew they were or- 
dered to shut off* steam. They did so. It 
was a perfect, calm day, and the ships lay, 
still as paint between a clear blue sky and a 
deep-blue sea while a boat-load of bluejackets 
from the big fighting ship rowed across a swell 
so gentle that it seemed to be only serving to 
put life into a picture. The lagging steamer 
had been short a few oilers or firemen or water- 
tenders. The big ship had them to spare. 
After that the slow one picked right up. Soon 
it was standard speed with everybody in proper 
alignment again. 

Not often do seagoing people get the chance 
to see a fleet of merchant steamers cruising 
the wide ocean. A full-rigged sailing-ship, a 
steam-collier, a tramp steamer, all came out 
of their way in one day to view the strange 
sight. As they did so, one of our smaller and 
faster war-ships would trot over to have a 
closer peek in turn at the curious ones; to ask 



SEEING THEM ACROSS 29 

them questions; probably also to tell them to 
keep their wireless mouths shut, if they had 
any. 

One day one big freighter did not answer 
signals promptly. Perhaps she could not read 
them. In these war times it is not too easy 
to get crews who are sea-wise in every detail 
— the expert signalman among the officers 
might have been off watch and having a nap. 
Anyway, one of our little fighting fellows went 
bounding after her. It was like watching a 
sheep-dog at work. The war-ship moved up 
from behind, drew up, and then, showing her 
teeth, headed the freighter the other way and 
held her headed that way while she put an 
officer aboard and asked an explanation, which 
was probably given and doubtless all right, for 
the officer came back and the freighter resumed 
her regular course. Day in and day out that 
was the way of it, every passing ship being 
viewed as suspect and our own ships, of vary- 
ing speeds and tonnage, trying to keep a good 
alignment. 

The weather generally was fine, but one 
morning we ran into a fog. A fog has its vir- 
tues; a submarine cannot see you in a fog. 



3 o THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

But neither can you see a submarine. And 
somewhere handy to you is a bunch of your 
own ships, and no telling when one of them 
may come riding out of the mist and climb 
aboard by way of your port or starboard 
quarter ! 

A whistle by day or a search-light by night 
would have been a great help to our naval 
officer on the bridge during that fog, but he 
was denied that. So he made out (as did 
every other commander on every other bridge 
during the fog) with whatever other means he 
could devise. Nothing happened to us. 

The fog passed on, and then one day came a 
slaty gray sea and a slaty sky. Gray seas look 
hard; white crests moving across gray seas 
look hard too. Our naval officer took time to 
look around on them. Gray hulls were smash- 
ing high bows into them, making boiling white 
water of the hard gray sea and throwing it to 
either side in fine, high-rolling billows as they 
pressed on. They were a fine sight then, with 
the smoke pouring out and trailing low from 
some of them. They were not trying to make 
smoke, but if a ship must make smoke, it will 
not be seen so far on a gray day. 



SEEING THEM ACROSS 31 

Our naval officer held the bridge from early 
that morning to nine o'clock that night. He 
had an idea that he might be able to sneak in 
a couple of hours' sleep against the strain of the 
later night. It was not bad weather when he 
left — a good breeze blowing and plenty of 
white showing. It was dirty, but not bad 
weather. He got in one hour in his bunk, 
turning in with his clothes on, when he was 
called to go on the bridge again. Something 
had happened. He could feel the increasing 
wind before he was fairly rolled out of his 
bunk. 

As he stepped out on deck he could see that 
the lookouts had adopted life-belts- for the 
night. The lookouts were men from among 
the troops, and now each man as he went off 
watch was handing over his life-belt to the 
next coming on. They had had to use the sol- 
diers for lookouts. In these war days no mer- 
chant ship can supply from her regular crew 
one-tenth of the men needed for lookout work 
in the war zone. The soldiers were all right, 
but just then our naval officer felt sorry for 
them. He had been having them up before 
him afternoons, lecturing them on their duties 



32 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

as lookouts. That very afternoon he had had 
a bunch of them before him while he ex- 
plained a few new things. He had spent 
extra time on the men who were to be on for- 
ward watch this very night, with the men who 
were to go into the bow or into the forward 
crow's nest. And now they were there, buried 
as the bow went smash into it, or — those of 
them who had drawn the crow's nest — swing- 
ing a hundred feet in the air. All right for old 
seagoers, but most of these boys had never in 
their lives before been on an ocean-going ship. 
Some had never even seen a big ship until they 
came to the seacoast for their trip. They had 
great eyesight, some of these young fellows — 
men who had lain on the bull's-eye at a thou- 
sand yards regularly were bound to have that 
— and they made good lookouts once they got 
the idea, but climbing the last twenty feet of 
that ladder to the crow's nest, leaning back 
under part of the time with life-belt stuffed 
under their overcoats — they surely must have 
been thinking that a soldier's duties were diffi- 
cult as well as various in these days of war. 

A ship on tossing seas and the wind blowing 
a dirge through the rigging — well, a man may 



SEEING THEM ACROSS 33 

be brave enough to fight all the Germans this 
side the Russian line, but if he is new to sea 
life he is apt to see things. Two soldiers were 
standing on deck when our naval officer came 
out of his room. They were not on guard. 
They did not have to be there — they were stay- 
ing awake on their own account. One said to 
the other: "There, there—look ! Ain't that a 
submarine ?" 

It was a shadow as high as a house. "If 
that is a submarine," thinks our officer, "then 
it is good night to us, for she's a whale of a one ! " 

It was no submarine. It was the shadow of 
one of their own ships which had been driven 
out of column. 

It was blowing hard when our officer made 
the bridge. He could not see far, but far enough 
to see that the ocean was black, and that 
across the black of it the white patches were 
flying — dead white patches leaping high in 
the night. 

The fleet was in direct column ahead, or 
should have been. Some were surely having 
their troubles staying there. This steaming 
close behind a ship, with another ship close be- 
hind you — and you have to be close up to see 



34 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

from one to the other on such a night — made 
me think as I stood under the bridge that 
night: "Give me all the submarines in the 
world before this with a fleet that has not had 
a chance to practise evolutions." 

There was not a steaming light of any kind, 
not even one shaded little one in the stern, 
which an enemy might see and, seeing, swing in 
behind it. Rather than show even the smallest 
little guiding light, our fellows preferred to 
steam this way in the night. 

The glad morning came, glad for the reason 
that an almost warm, bright sun came with it. 
The sun showed three ships gone from the 
column. There was more than one of us who 
wished that we too had gone from the column 
about six hours ago. We would have slept bet- 
ter. Still, it was a good experience to have — be- 
hind you. Wind and sea went down; all hands 
felt better — especially the lookouts. Those who 
came down from the crow's nest looked as if 
the grace of God had suddenly fallen on them. 

By and by we picked up the drifters. They 
were looking just as hard for us as we were for 
them; and later that day we ran into our escorts 
from the other side. Everybody at once felt 



SEEING THEM ACROSS 35 

as if the trip was as good as over. The fact 
was that the worst part of the war zone was 
ahead of us. All hands were still turning in 
with life-belts handy, and most of them with 
clothes on, but there was a feeling that now it 
was up to these new escorts. 

Before we reached France on this run we 
were in a U-boat fight, which I shall tell of later. 
What I want to say now is that the submarine 
fight had an enjoyable side to it, but as for that 
night run of our troop-ships in gale and sea — 
a big ship just ahead, a big ship just behind, 
big high-bowed ships plunging down at four- 
teen knots an hour from roaring waters in the 
dark — there was no fun in that ! 

Of the scores of devices the fleet used to beat 
the U-boats on that run across, a man can say 
nothing here. But to get back: our naval 
officer stuck to his bridge until one most beau- 
tiful morning he took his ship into a most 
beautiful port on a most beautiful shore. I 
never before heard anybody so describe that 
same port, but the general verdict says it did 
look pretty good. 

This story of our troop-ship's run across is 
given from the view-point of the naval officer 



36 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

in charge. It could just as well have been 
written from the view-point of the merchant 
captain or his officers aboard — all on the job; 
or the chief engineer or his assistants — all on 
the job, and who put in more than one hour 
guessing at what was going on above; or from 
the view-point of the quartermaster captain, or 
his clerks, or the oilers, or the firemen, or the 
water-tenders, or the cooks, or anybody else, 
high or low, in the ship's regular service. 

This transport service is one tough game. 
It is well enough for us who have but one trip 
to make. But one trip after another! They 
had good right to look a bit younger when they 
made the other side. But before we can win 
this war we've got to get the million or two or 
three million men across; and the millions of 
tons of supplies. Somebody has got to see 
them across. These men on the troop-ships are 
doing it. May nothing happen to them ! 



THE U-BOATS APPEAR 

THE soldier lookouts in the forward 
crow's nest had been especially advised 
to have an eye out for the convoys 
which were to pick us up as we neared the 
other side; and they were very much on the 
job. 

One bright morning came: "Smoke three 
points off the port bow. . . . Smoke broad off 
the starboard bow. . . . Smoke dead ahead. 
. . . One point off the . . . Broad off the 
. . ." and so on. Their excited calls rattled 
down like rapid fire to the bridge; the thrill 
in their voices rolled like a wave through the 
ship. That smoke, incidentally, meant that the 
strangers, whoever they were, had already 
identified us and so were not afraid to let us 
see them. 

Everybody that was not already on deck 
came running up to have a look for himself. 
It was our escort. Darting across our bows 
they came — low-riding, slim, gray bodies. The 
ranking one reported to our flag-ship; and all, 

37 



38 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

without any fuss or extra foam, took position 
and went to work as though they had been 
there for weeks. And as they did our big 
war-ship and the little ones which had come 
across with her wheeled about and went off. 
There was no ceremonious leave-taking. They 
simply turned on their heels and flew. They 
might as well have said: "We are glad to have 
met you and been with you, but we can do no 
more for you, so good-by and good luck; we're 
going back home as fast as we can get there." 

A soldier watched them going and said: 
"The night before we left home I went to a 
show, and a fellow sang: 'Good-by, Broadway! 
Hello, France !' I thought it was great. I know 
what they're saying aboard those ships there 
now. 'Hello, Broadway! Good-by, France!' 
is what they're saying. And I betcher it'll be 
a straight line with no time wasted zigzagging 
for them on the way back !" 

He had it about right. They carried the 
most eloquent sterns that any of us had seen 
on ships for a long time. The big one in the 
middle, the others like chickens under either 
wing — away they went, belting it for about 
sixteen knots good. In one half-hour all we 



THE U-BOATS APPEAR 39 

could see of them was a cloud of smoke to the 
west'ard. Just how far off the French coast 
we were at this time does not matter here, or 
from what direction we were approaching; but 
we were far enough off for that group of de- 
stroyers to show how they went about their 
work of guarding the troop-ships. To comb 
the sea about us was their mission; and they 
were attending to it every minute. The fleet 
steamed on. 

We proceeded under advices not to fall 
asleep with too much clothes on, and never to 
get too far away from our life-belts. It may 
have been true that some men slept with their 
life-belts on, but it is probably not true that 
one man took his to the bathroom with him — 
not true because about the time we got that 
far along the steward refused to prepare any 
more baths. He had enough on his mind, he 
said, without fussing with baths. 

There was one place we looked forward to 
passing with lively feelings. We may not name 
the place here, but here is how it was described: 
"Ever been to that big aquarium in Naples? 
Yes ? Well, remember those devil-fish hiding 
behind the rock on the bottom ? Along comes 



4 o THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

an innocent young fish who is a stranger to 
those waters. Mr. Devilfish, hiding behind, 
has a peek at it coming. He waits. Mr. 
Young Fish drifts by his hiding-place, and 
then — Good night, young fishie." 

That kind of talk in the watches of the night 
sounded like lively action before us. We 
waited for — call it the Devilfish's Cave — and 
waited; and the first thing we knew when we 
came to inquire further about it, we were safely 
past it, with never a sign of any devil-fish, un- 
less it would be the one torpedo which went by 
the bow of one of us from some distance one 
noontime. Some distance it must have been 
because it was a clear day with a smooth sea, 
and under such weather conditions, with the 
hundreds of wide-awake lookouts in the fleet, 
no U-boat could have put up a periscope 
within any near distance and not be seen by 
somebody. As for long-distance shots from 
submarines — there is small need to worry about 
them. Subs like to get within a thousand 
yards or less. Those three and four mile shots 
— it is like trying to hit a sea-gull with a rifle. 
Amateurs try that kind of shooting, but the 
professional, who has to reckon the cost of 



THE U-BOATS APPEAR 41 

powder and shot, lets it pass. Not that the 
Germans are sparing of the cost of war, but a 
sub which has to make a voyage of three thou- 
sand miles to take on a fresh load of torpedoes 
is not firing too many for the mere practice. 

We drew near the coast of France, and still 
nothing had happened. We were getting hails, 
of course, from the lookouts. There was one 
who called it a dull watch when he did not see 
at least one periscope. He had never seen a 
periscope in his life, but he had read about 
periscopes. One night just at dark he stood 
us all on our heads by reporting one just along- 
side. We all got a flash at it then, an ominous 
object, bobbing under our port quarter, and 
then it went down into our wake. It bobbed 
up again, and we all had another look. It was 
a beer-keg. The ship's first officer, the one 
who had a gold medal as big as a saucer for 
saving life at sea, eyed the keg, and then he 
eyed the lookout, saying: "An empty one too ! 
If you'd only report a full one, we might gaff 
it aboard." 

When that same first officer was one day 
asked if he intended taking his big medal with 
him in case we had to take to the boats, he 



42 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

replied: "With twenty-eight persons in the 
boat ! Good Lord, don't you think she'll be 
carrying enough freight ?" 

We steamed along, dark night astern this 
time and the white morning above our bow. 
The bridge — three naval and two ship's officers 
— had for some time been using the glasses. 
From aloft forward came the sudden yell: 
"Land ho!" 

The bridge nodded that it heard. "Land 
ho ! " repeated the lookout stentoriously. "Two 
points off the port bow," and then, peering 
doubtfully down at the bridge: "Am I right ?" 

"You are," said the bridge sweetly; "we've 
been looking at it for half an hour." Which 
was rather rough, for to shore-going eyes land 
does at first look like a low cloud on the horizon 
and, naturally, a fellow wants to make sure. 

Pretty soon we could most of us see it from 
the deck, and it did look good. I once saw the 
flat, bleak Atlantic coast of Patagonia after ten 
days at sea, and the high iron wintry coast 
of Newfoundland after another period at sea, 
and I clearly recall that even they both looked 
like fine countries. And the coast of France 
was neither bleak nor icy, so you may guess 



THE U-BOATS APPEAR 43 

that it was a pleasing sight on this summer 
morning. It was a dream of a day, the sea 
like a green-tinted mirror, the sky blue as 
paint, and the softest little breath of air float- 
ing off the land to us. We were perhaps ten 
miles offshore. 

The enchanted land lay before us and our 
troubles behind us — or so we thought — and 
yet we were many of us disappointed. After 
our more than three thousand miles we had 
not even caught sight of a U-boat. 

Now, we probably did not want to see one, 
but we sort of had an idea that we were en- 
titled to have one pop up and then disappear. 
Something to talk about, without anybody 
coming to harm through it — that was about 
our composite idea. 

However, there are compensations for all 
things; we could now prepare peacefully for 
going ashore. I was in the lounge-room be- 
low sharpening a pencil, and, there being no 
waste-basket handy, carefully shunting the 
shavings into a writing-desk drawer. 

The fire-alarm rang. That was the signal 
to hurry on deck with your life-belt, take your 
station by your boat, and prepare to abandon 



44 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

ship. But we had been doing that every day 
since we left home. The first time we heard 
that call we had gone jumping, but after the 
third or fourth time we moved more leisurely. 

Some took their life-belts from their rooms 
and started up. Every soldier, of course, 
grabbed one from where they were piled up 
in the passageways and went at once. They 
had no option. Their officers would get after 
them if they did not. 

I thought I would finish sharpening my pen- 
cil. I thought I heard a blast from a ship's 
whistle somewhere outside; but I was not sure. 
Then I heard a blast from our own ship's 
whistle. Wugh-wugh-wugh ! I did not wait 
for any more. I did not finish sharpening the 
pencil. I did not wait to shut the desk drawer. 
I did not do anything but move. There were 
six blasts from the whistle, and six blasts meant 
U-boats. 

There was a heavy-set officer coming down 
the passageway. He was heavier by twenty 
pounds than I was, but I had more speed. I 
know I had. Not since the winter's day on 
George's Bank a quartering sea chased me down 
the cabin companionway of the Charles W. Par- 



THE U-BOATS APPEAR 45 

ker of Gloucester have I moved so fast on a 
ship, and I was fifteen years younger then. 
We bounced off each other. We did not stop 
to talk when we straightened out. He went 
his way and I went mine, and if I looked 
anything like him, then my jaw was thrust 
out and my eyes had an earnest look in 
them. 

My life-belt was under my bunk. It did 
not stay there long. I went back down the 
passageway jumping. There was a fine crush 
going up to the boat-deck. Only a seagoing 
man knows how to take a ship's ladder with 
speed. You just got to have practice at it. 
There were some fine athletic boys among the 
troopers, but "Sweet mother," wailed a ship's 
man, "are those new army shoes made of 
leather, or are they lead that they move so 
slow?" And that comment did not have to 
travel a lonesome road. 

While scooting up the ladder we heard a gun; 
and another gun. As we made the boat-deck 
there was another ship barking out six short 
blasts. 

The ships of the fleet, when we got to where 
we could see them, were headed every which 



46 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

way. We could feel our own ship heel over — 
she turned so sharply. Every ship in the fleet 
was going it — right angles, quarter angles, all 
degrees of angles. But what impressed us 
most — we almost laughed to see her — was the 
lubber of the fleet. She was twice the tonnage 
of most of us, and early in the run across she 
had brought anguish to our souls by the way 
she lagged. "You bum, you loafer, you old 
cart-horse, why don't you move up ?" our sol- 
diers used to yell across at her. She had not 
then enough men in her steam department to 
keep her engines warm, so she reported. But 
now she had steam enough. She was wide and 
high, a huge hulk of a ship, and here she was 
now charging — charging was the word — like a 
motor-boat at where somebody said the U-boat 
had just submerged. Whether she got her 
U-boat, I don't know; but she certainly did 
cut through the water for about a mile. 

The ship next behind us went after some- 
thing; and the ship next ahead went tearing 
away after something else, and another ship — 
but, man, a battalion of eyes could not follow 
them all. A destroyer went — zizz-sh zizz — a 
thirty-odd knot clip — and the next thing we 



THE U-BOATS APPEAR 47 

saw was a ten-foot column of solid white water 
shooting straight up beside that destroyer. 

And then came the terrific Bo-o-om ! Our 
ship shook from one end to the other. I thought 
it came from inside of us — that it was a load- 
ing-port door let drop by some careless ship's 
man below. The ship's officer in charge of our 
life-boat thought so, too. He stepped to the 
ship's side to look down. "That one, he 
should be put in the brig — scaring us all like 
that!" I agreed with him heartily, only I 
thought he should be put in a second brig 
after he got out of the first one. Some time 
later we learned that it was the shock from the 
bomb dropped by the destroyer, from which 
you can gauge what chance the submarine will 
have which happens to catch one of those 
bombs on its back. 

We carried two 5-inch guns in our bow and 
two astern. Those gun crews had been stand- 
ing by those guns from the first day out. For 
the last three days they had been sleeping near 
them in their life-jackets and taking their 
meals standing beside them. They were not 
going to be left out of it. About a thousand 
yards away some one reported a floating tor- 



48 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

pedo. Whether it was a live or a spent one 
made no matter. It was too soft a target; 
besides, some ship in the hurry of manoeuvring 
might run into it. Bang! went two of our 
5-inch fellows, one from each end of the ship 
and both together. 

That was when we heard from our chief 
engineer. He had been below from the be- 
ginning, and knew from the way the bells were 
coming down from the bridge that there was 
something doing topside. When the destroyer 
dropped her first bomb he wondered if the ship 
was torpedoed. He waited, and his men, with 
their shovels and slice-bars and oil-cans — they 
waited, every one of them, with one sharp eye 
to the nearest ash-hoist, which reminded the 
chief that he would never leave home again — 
and this time he meant it — without installing 
those four more ladders leading up from the 
engine and fire-room quarters to the decks. 
No, sir, he would not. 

But nothing happened ! And then those 
two 5-inch guns went off together. War-ships 
are built to withstand impact, but merchant- 
ships — no. This time the chief was sure she 
was torpedoed. His fire-room force were mostly 



THE U-BOATS APPEAR 49 

Spaniards. He used to talk at table about his 
fire-room gang. "You would think, with your 
ship coming through the war zone and your 
watch down in the bottom of her, that you 
would want to go up topside when your watch 
was done, for, of course, if any U-boat got the 
ship, it would be the fellows below who would 
first get the full benefit. ,, But that gang of 
his! "Doggone, they'd sit there when their 
watch was over, six or eight of 'em, and play 
some cross-eyed Spanish card-game for a peseta 
a corner. What d'y' know about them ?" 

The chiefs gang could not talk English, but 
they had speaking eyes. They now looked at 
the chief, and he went up to have a peek. He 
came back soon. "They are having target 
practice," he told them. He had been running 
the Caribbean ports long enough to be able to 
say that much in Spanish; but more than all he 
smiled as he said it. You want to smile to get 
away with anything like that in the fire-room 
of a troop-ship in the U-boat country. 

Every ship in the fleet was now having some- 
thing to say with her guns; and with their 
incessant manoeuvring at such close quarters 
the sea was all torn up by their wakes. Two 



50 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

or three wakes or bow waves would cross each 
other, and the sea would roll up with a bound- 
ing white crest. There were also the wakes of 
hidden submarines. You could tell them if 
you saw any by the way they did not stop in 
one place; they moved on. When a gunner 
saw a submarine wake he fired; where he 
wasn't sure he fired anyway. What was he 
there for ? Bang ! Boom ! Solid shot were 
ricochetting, piling up little white splashes, and 
the shrapnel were making little holes and burst- 
ing into little white smoke puffs all over the 
place. 

You must not forget that it was a beautiful 
day and a perfectly calm sea with the shore of 
France looming like a blue mirage on the hori- 
zon. It lasted about forty minutes altogether, 
and through it all the little destroyers — don't 
forget them — were weaving in and out among 
the big ships; and on the big ships were thou- 
sands of troopers, white life-belts around their 
olive-drab uniforms, standing steadily by life- 
boats and rafts. 

Our fellows on the destroyers did handle 
their little ships well. And the troop-ships were 
handled well — no collisions and no gun-shells 



THE U-BOATS APPEAR 51 

going aboard anybody else. A few went across 
other people's bows and sterns, but not too 
near to worry. And in the middle of it all, 
our guns made so much noise that before we 
heard them we saw them — two airplanes, 
whirring and cavorting about and above us. 
Whenever they saw a destroyer turn and shoot, 
they would turn and shoot after the destroyer. 
They could move about three times as fast as 
a destroyer, and so quite often beat the de- 
stroyer to it. 

Later the airplanes escorted us into port. 
They were big, powerful biplanes, and carried 
a sky-pointing gun mounted forward and the 
colors of France painted on their little wings 
aft. They kept circling about us until we made 
our harbor. Whenever they swooped low 
enough our troopers gave them a fine cheer. 

My job being to tell what I saw and heard, 
I want to say here that throughout the entire 
melee I never saw one periscope ! And there 
were thousands like me who never saw a peri- 
scope. But there were hundreds of others — 
cool, sensible people — who are ready to make 
affidavits that they did see periscopes. 

Why did not more of us see any ? Well, a 



52 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

submarine commander needs to turn up his 
periscope for only four, five, six, or seven sec- 
onds to have a look. If you do not happen 
to be gazing directly at the spot, you do not 
see it or the white bone which it makes going 
through the water. 

On my ship the ranking officer was a regular 
army colonel who had seen active and danger- 
ous service in the Philippines and elsewhere. 
He is given rather to understatement than over- 
statement of facts — a cool, level-headed ob- 
server. He saw a periscope. We had another 
officer who had been in the service in the 
Spanish War, had got out and was now back. 
He was probably the best lookout of all the 
army officers in the ship — a solid, substantial 
man with a keen eye. He could see what any- 
body else could see, but further than that you 
had to show him. Several of us had already 
christened him "Show me." He reported two 
periscopes. Now he had never seen a sub- 
marine operating in his life. I asked him to 
describe the action of the periscope. He de- 
scribed it perfectly as I had noticed it in trial 
trips of submarines off Cape Cod, which is 
where the Electric Boat Company used to try 



THE U-BOATS APPEAR 53 

theirs out before turning them over to pur- 
chasers. 

My own notion of it is that the U-boats 
have many of us bluffed. They must be capa- 
ble men who go in submarines; of good nerve, 
quick wit, and the power to withstand long 
nervous strain. Such men in a submarine are 
going to throw great scares into people of less 
capacity on surface ships. Put such men some- 
where else than in a submarine and they will 
outwit men not so well equipped for the war 
game. 

But these men, no men, can make the sub- 
marine do impossible things. Before firing a 
torpedo the submarine must come near enough 
to the surface to stick out her periscope, to have 
a look around to locate her target. In sticking 
out the periscope, lookouts on ships are likely 
to see it. On merchant ships they do not keep 
a lookout which combs the sea thoroughly; 
they do not carry men enough for that. The 
strain of such a lookout is great. Men cannot 
stand to it as to an ordinary watch; they have 
to be relieved frequently; and so submarines 
may have an advantage over merchant ships, 
especially if the merchant ships are slow- 



54 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

moving freighters. But a war-ship, or a troop- 
ship in convoy is something else. Troop-ships 
carry an immense number of lookouts, not 
overworked men who are liable to go to sleep 
on watch, but keen-eyed young fellows of high 
vitality, surrounded by other young fellows of 
high vitality, and all competing to see who can 
see something first. 

They will spot a periscope, under normal 
conditions, at a pretty good distance; which 
does not mean that that periscope is at once 
going to be blown out of the water. Hitting a 
piece of 4-inch pipe at any distance is not easy; 
the pipe moving and the ship moving does not 
make it any easier. 

But the submarine has shown herself. To 
get her torpedo home she will have to move 
nearer. With a thousand eyes looking for her 
and five, six, a dozen ships with four guns or 
more apiece waiting to have a crack at her, 
she is not going to have a pleasant time after 
she moves nearer. She must show her peri- 
scope again to locate her target. To show her 
periscope she must get her hull somewhere 
near the surface; it takes a little time — not so 
much, but a little time to get her hull safely 



THE U-BOATS APPEAR 55 

below again; and while she is doing that who 
can say that not one of our five, six, or a dozen 
ships will be handy to the spot ? And if one 
of our ships should happen to be handy enough, 
what can save the submarine from being 
rammed ? And if she is rammed there is no 
hope for her — she is gone. 

I am pretty much of one mind with our first 
officer in this submarine matter. In the mid- 
dle of the combat off the French coast he was 
making the rounds, cutting away the lashings 
which held the life-boats to the davits — this in 
case we had to leave the ship. He had a 
squint at the banging guns, the charging troop- 
ships, the flying destroyers; and then he looked 
up long enough to say: "A fat chance a U-boat 
would have if she so much as stuck her nose 
out. In four seconds she'd be like a rabbit 
among a pack of hunting-dogs. She might get 
away, but I bet you no bookmaker would take 
her end of it." 

This argument does not apply to a slow- 
steaming freighter going it alone; it is for the 
matter of troop-ships moving at a fairly good 
speed. For myself that time the fleet steamed 
in direct column ahead, one ship jam up be- 



5 6 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

hind another, in a rough sea and on a black 
night, at high speed without lights of any kind, 
they did a more difficult thing than to evade or 
stand off half a dozen U-boat attacks. No 
fleet of ships can be put beyond all danger of 
submarine attack, but the danger to the subs 
can be made so great that it won't be worth 
the price the attacking force will pay. 

I do not know how many U-boats were in 
that attack. The official figures will no doubt 
be given out in time. Our moderate estimators 
here put it down as three, with one transport 
ramming and sinking one U-boat. Two honest 
lads of one of our own forward gun crews say 
that our ship bumped over another. They 
felt the bump. Perhaps they did, but blue- 
jackets at twenty years of age are apt to be 
optimistic, as witness: 

The day after that U-boat fight the skipper, 
first officer, chief engineer, and myself were 
trying our French on a waiter in a cafe ashore, 
but not quite putting it over; we had to re- 
sort to a little English to get action for one 
important item of our meal. A party of 
American bluejackets — gun crews — were at an- 
other table. They heard us speak English, 



THE U-BOATS APPEAR 57 

whereat one of them called over: "Say, you 
guys comprong English ? Wee, wee ? Then 
you oughter been where we were yesterday. 
Yuh'd seen something. Fighting U-boats we 
were. Comprong ? U-boats — wee, wee, U-boats. 
Thirty-six of 'em came after us an* we sunk 
twelve. Whaddyer know about that?" We 
did not know, so we opened up a bottle of the 
ordinary red wine of the country, price deux 
francs, and drank to their enthusiastic health. 



I- 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL 

TO get out of France after getting in, a 
man has to go to Paris, see the prefect 
of police, various consuls, and so on. 
It was all interesting — the life in Paris — but it 
had nothing to do with U-boats. I had to go 
to England, and to make England, I had to 
go to Havre. 

And I was in Havre. Looking out the window 
at a roof across the narrow street was a sign 
which read Hotel of the Six Allies. The Six 
looked as though it had been painted over. 
The head waiter told me later that it had. It 
had begun at three, then it became four-— five — 
now six. But there were more than six now — 
did not the great United States count ? Oh, 
yes, truly yes — but the paint and painters ! 
They were growing more scarce. The war — 
yes. Everything was the war. 

The head waiter was a little old fellow with 
a round back, a quizzical eye, and the hair of a 
first violin. After I beat my way by main 
strength through three table-d'hote meals with 

58 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL 59 

him he let me know that he could talk English. 
Why hadn't he told me so before ? Oh ! Did 
I not wish to practise my French ? So many 
did, and if they made him understand, the tips 
were sometimes more inspiring. 

The steamer for England had been scheduled 
to leave the night of the day our train arrived, 
but she did not leave. We did not learn 
whether it was the full moon or the U-boats 
shifting their hunting-grounds or the late air- 
raids on the south coast of England. What- 
ever the cause, no one growled much. The 
steamship people and the government were 
doing their best with a difficult service. The 
delay gave us another day to look the port over. 
I had been there years before. Then it was all 
French; now it seemed to be mostly British. 
The streets, the shops, the cafes, were crowded 
with English, Canadian, and Australian sol- 
diers. British soldiers were running the tram- 
cars. In the country outside was a large Brit- 
ish camp. The French owners of the ships and 
of the cafes in the narrow streets near the jet- 
ties catered especially to the British soldier and 
sailor. English tobacco, English rosbif— they 
advertised these in quaintly worded signs. 



60 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

Ships lay between the jetties and the break- 
water, coasting and deep-water steamers, and 
the little fishing-cutters with the tanned sails. 
There was a fleet (or a flock) of seaplanes all 
ready to take to either the water or the air. 
They took to both while we looked, hurdling 
the breakwater from the basin to get more 
quickly to some smoke on the horizon. They 
were brand-new planes all, with the most 
beautiful polished maple pontoons and bright 
varnish over paint that still smelled fresh. 

Soldiers not so worn and weary as those on 
the hospital veranda came down to the jetty 
promenade. Priests, nursing sisters, other sol- 
diers and sailors came also. What interested 
them most was the sun shining on the bright 
new wood of the planes flying out to see what 
the smoke meant. It was a ship from across 
the ocean somewhere, and the planes circled it 
into the basin — one more ship which had beat 
the U-boat game and brought home some- 
thing needed. There was some noise along the 
jetty and yet more noise in the wide and nar- 
row streets of the town — clanging trams, whip- 
cracking fiacres, yelling newsboys, honking 
taxis, and soldiers and sailors tramping the 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL 61 

pavements. Noise enough, and of the kind 
befitting a Channel port in war time; but for a 
time at least we heard the noise let down, and 
the bustle softened. 

In a wide street of shops appeared a white- 
haired priest with a white crucifix held high 
before him. Behind him was another priest 
reading from a book of prayer. Two laymen 
came next, bearing a little white-painted table 
with a little white coffin — a cheap board coffin 
— resting on it. There was a canopy of plain 
white boards over the little coffin. There were 
a few white blossoms on the canopy and be- 
side the coffin a few lilies of the valley — only a 
few. 

Two other laymen followed the coffin bear- 
ers. All the men were bareheaded. Three 
women — young women and young mothers to 
look at — followed the two men. One of the 
young women was in deep black. A group of 
little girls followed the young woman. Two 
very old women came last. No more than that, 
walking through a crowded street at two o'clock 
of a bright day ! 

It was on us almost before we saw it. Men 
took off their hats as it passed; women blessed 



62 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

themselves. Sometimes men's lips murmured 
a short prayer; always the women did. The 
soldiers and sailors, when they were French, 
saluted nearly always; the British sometimes. 
The officers, if anything, saluted more pro- 
foundly than the enlisted men, and, when they 
did not stop dead, held a hand to their caps 
for eight or ten paces in passing. 

Two soldiers were talking with two girls of 
the streets. One of the soldiers took off his 
cap. One of the girls stopped talking to say a 
little word of prayer. Both soldiers faced 
about, and all four gazed in silence for long 
after the little cortege had passed on. Then 
the first soldier put on his cap, all faced about, 
and resumed their talk, but more slowly and 
not quite so loudly as before. 

An English Tommy was driving a tram — a 
swearing Tommy that you could hear a block 
away. He came on the mourners from behind. 
He was in a hurry, and by clanging his bell he 
could have crowded by. But he held the tram 
in check, nursing it so as not to frighten the 
two old women in the rear — until they came to 
a wide square. Here there was room. He 
clanged his bell, not too loudly, turned on the 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL 63 

juice, and hurried to make up for lost time. 
Men are being killed by the million over here, 
and other men who have been there — these 
very men on these streets — will tell you that 
they hardly turn their heads to see one more 
killed. But a little child is different. 

Our steamer was to sail next night — at what 
hour no one could say, but it was well to be 
there in good time, we were told, so we went 
with the hotel bus. A little porter woman was 
there with my 70-pound bag before I even knew 
" things were ready"; and she said she did not 
roll it down the five flights from my room. 
She carried it every stair step of the way. 
Her husband was in the war, and she had five 
children and it required more than a few sous 
in the week for five children, the eldest four- 
teen. I agreed that it did. 

Swinging on to the jetty, we had to take no- 
tice of a shop advertising to rent life-saving 
apparatus for the trip across the Channel. It 
was fine — a one-piece suit which came from the 
toes to the ears and a hood which you could 
turn in over your head ! There was a painting 
of a torpedoed passenger ship going up in 
flames, topside and the hull settling down into 



64 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

the rolling billows. Men and women were 
jumping into the sea and drowning in agony. 
They had no life-saving, one-piece suits. But 
all were not so thoughtless. There were others 
floating along high out of water with the most 
beatific expressions on their faces. They had 
been thoughtful enough to buy one of the patent 
one-piece suits. The painting was in colors, 
red and black mostly. 

The afternoon had closed in showers, and 
when we made the steamer landing we stood 
in pools of water in the hollows of the worn 
stone flags. We were in good time, but a hun- 
dred or more who had been in better time were 
already inside the shed. The hold-overs from 
three days were there, military people mostly. 
We waited — and waited — and waited. It was 
the eternal passport matter. One at a time 
they had to pass the tribunal inside. A pleas- 
ant-mannered young English soldier stood guard 
at the shed door. Every, half-hour or so, at 
command of a voice from the inside, he would 
let another dozen or twenty slide by. When he 
did so, those of us in the rear would hurry to 
fill the void, picking up our baggage from our 
feet as we pushed on. I had hired a porter, 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL 65 

an old man, to look after my 70-pound bag. 
He stood by patiently for two hours or so. 
Then, without warning, he ran off and did not 
come back. I had not paid him, so he must 
have grown very tired. After that, whenever 
I moved forward, I had to pick up my two bags 
myself — the other weighed 40 pounds. Some- 
times I put the bags into a pool of water — 
sometimes I put my feet. 

Not every one had to wait. An officer would 
be passed through immediately, which did not 
please two enlisted men near me, just back from 
what they called rough work at the front. The 
little one, called Scotty, had a fear that the 
boat might leave before he could get there. 
He wanted to "mak' a train oot o' Lunnon" 
at two of the next afternoon, "mak' a nicht 
train oot o' Glesgie" (Glasgow) and surprise 
his folk by walking in on 'em "afore brekkist." 
They would be glad to see him, be sure. 

"Almost as glad to see you come as they was 
goin' ?" asked the soldier with him, and then 
urged Scotty to stop over in London for a bit 
o' fun. 

"I'll not," said Scotty. "I'll mak' the trains 
as I said an' surprise 'em afore brekkist. Be- 



66 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

sides, there's a football match on for the arter- 
noon arter to-morrer, and an old pal o' mine 
is playin' for'ard for oor team. But let 'em 
allow all these officers aboord first — 'ere's 
anither ane — listen tae 'im!" 

But it was not an officer this time. It was 
a voice asking if any privileges were accorded 
a King's messenger. The guard at the door 
said certainly, but where was he ? Everybody 
made way for the voice. He turned out to be 
a little man with a scraggy beard and large 
round spectacles. The guard eyed him doubt- 
fully. The King's messenger stood on his toes 
and whispered up into the guard's ear. 

The guard looked down on him. "King's 
messenger! Go on with yerl" He shoved 
him back. 

"Yes, gam with yer !" said Scotty, "but he's 
gained a guid half oor wi' his King's-messenger 
talk. I think I'll hae tae be something im- 
portant masel' sune." 

The soldier with Scotty could speak French. 
He spoke it to a pretty young French girl and 
her mother who had been pressed up against 
them. The mother had a new hat in a big 
paper box. Whenever the rush threatened to 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL 67 

crush the hat-box, she would hold it high over 
her head till she could hold it no longer, when 
she let it get crushed. 

Whenever the girl spoke to the other soldier 
Scotty would want to know what she said. 
"She's sairtainly pretty. What did she say 
that time, Tid ?" 

Tid kept to himself what she said. "It's a 
cut above the likes of you we're discussin'," 
said Tid. 

"She'll be goin' to England to marry an 
English officer," said Scotty. 

The girl whirled on him. "No. No Eng- 
leesh officier — a French officier!" 

"I had a notion you'd spoil it," said Tid. 

"Ma Gud," groaned Scotty. "I wonder, 
Tid, did she hear a' I said this nicht o' her, and 
ma lips no two feet frae her ear!" 

The night was growing cooler. The girl's 
fur neck-piece slipped down from her shoulders. 
The mother had passed her the hat-box, and 
the girl had no hand free for the neck-piece. 
Scotty put it back for her. She thanked him 
sweetly. 

"You're no mad noo?" said Scotty. "I'll 
tak' a steady billet tae put it back." He took 



68 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

to slyly stroking the fur piece when he thought 
she could not see him. 

A woman lost her passport, but did not know 
it until she was about to be passed through the 
door. Then she shrieked. She came back in 
the crowd to look for it. She had been stand- 
ing in one spot for an hour — it must be there. 
She rushed to the spot, lit a match, and began 
to look under her feet. A man lit a match and 
began to look under his feet. Another man lit 
a match and began to look under his feet. 
We all lit matches and began to look under our 
feet. 

She shrieked again. "Ma Gud, she's a 
dyin' woman!" said Scotty. 

She was not. She had found her passport. 
The business of waiting was resumed by the 
rest of us. 

The little cafes along the water-front were 
closing; loads of soldiers and sailors began to 
flow out on to the jetty. One began to sing, 
and another; others to whirl along in grotesque 
dance steps. Two began to talk loudly. They 
came to blows. A third one stepped in to stop 
it, whereupon one of the first two turned on 
him to inquire what he was interfering for. 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL 69 

"But he's a friend o' mine," explained the 
third man. 

"Is he a better friend o' yours than o' me? 
Answer me that. Is he ? Do you know him 
longer than I know him? No? Then mind 
your own and do not be interferin'." The 
third man felt properly rebuked. He with- 
drew his objections and the other two resumed 
their fight. 

We were inside the shed at last; and by and 
by I came before a man in a little office inside 
the shed. He was a Frenchman, but spoke 
good English. 

"Your passport, please." 

I produced it. He took a look and passed 
it back. 

"Any gold on your person ?" 

"Thirty dollars— American." 

"Hand it over, please. Wait. Are you 
American ?" 
1 am. 

"In that case keep it. That is all. Pass 
out. Next." 

Next came a little house with a row of men 
sitting at a long, narrow pine-board table. 
The first had a quick look at my passport and 



7 o THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

handed it on to a man who sat on his left be- 
fore a card index in boxes. That one dug into 
his boxes, found what he was looking for, and 
slid the passport along to the next on his left, 
who slid it along to the man on his left, and he 
to the man on his left, and he to the last one. 

You chased that passport down the line, an- 
swering the questions which each one put in 
turn, as to where you last came from, where 
before that, and before that, and the date, your 
business, where you were going in England, 
why, for how long, and where you would stay. 
They were all pleasantly put, but you had the 
feeling that let you stumble and it would be 
God help you. Each asked a question or two 
that nobody else had thought of. The last 
one had the least of all to say. He probably 
thought that if, after all, you were a German 
spy, you had earned your exemption. He only 
made a note of your name, handed out a red 
card, said to give it to the soldier at the out- 
going door, claim your baggage, have the cus- 
toms inspector pass it, and go aboard the 
steamer when you liked. All I saw liked to go 
aboard at once. 

There was a man of many buttons behind a 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL 71 

shining brass grill on the steamer — French, ap- 
parently, but also speaking plain English. I 
handed in my ticket and asked for a berth. He 
was snappy. "Have you one reserved ?" 

"Why, no. When I bought my steamer 
ticket I was told that there would be no need 
to reserve a berth — there would be plenty." 

"He told you wrong. There are no berths." 

"But is he not your agent — the man who 
sold me the ticket ?" 

"No." 

"But you accept his ticket?" 

"There is no berth." 

"You mean that I pay for a first-class ticket 
on your steamer and then have to walk the 
deck?" 

"There is no berth, I say." He talked like 
a machine-gun, and the marble Roman gods 
were not more impassive as he turned to the 
next. I saluted him. You just have to honor 
a man who knows exactly what he wants to 
say and says it, which did not prevent me 
from saying over the next one's shoulder what 
I thought of his manners, the ethics of his com- 
pany, and the cheek of the well-known tourist 
agency which had sold me the ticket in Paris. 



72 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

But it did not get me anything. He went 
right on about his business of turning more 
people away. 

I had a look around. The smoking-room air 
was all blue, and all khaki as to chairs and tables. 
Also all khaki as to sleeping-quarters. They 
had been campaigning for a year or more on 
the western line, and had not lost any time here. 
And every blessed one of them had a whiskey 
and soda before him. They were talking, but 
not of the war. They were going home for a 
ten days' leave after a year at the front and 
were trying to forget the war. There was also a 
lounge-room and a dining-saloon, but bunks 
there were also already commandeered by the 
strategic military. 

It could be a worse night to walk the deck. 
To see what was doing a man would want to 
walk the deck anyway. 

There was a fine bright moon mounting above 
the housetops of the water-front when we slid 
away from our jetty berth. Slid is the word. 
She was all power, this Channel steamer of 
hardly 1,500 tons, yet with two great smoke- 
stacks, three propellers, turbine-engines, and 
burning oil for fuel. That last is a cheerful 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL 73 

item when you have to walk the deck — it means 
no cinders in your eyes. 

Fuss ? A strange word to her. She slipped 
like running oil from the jetty, past the break- 
water lights, out by the few craft anchored 
there — a fast one for sure. To get a line on 
her speed, you had but to watch the shore 
marks fall away or the water slide by her side 
as out into the Channel she went. 

People without berths, but with a chair and 
a rug from the head steward, began now to 
tuck away. At first they sat mostly by the 
rail watching things. Later they sought snug- 
ger corners; but two o'clock of a September 
morning in 50 north is still two o'clock in the 
morning. They began to go inside. The lights 
were turned off inside the ship, so when you 
walked around in there and felt your foot come 
down on something soft, you needed to tread 
lightly — that would be somebody's neck or 
stomach. There were life-rafts on the top 
deck, of a homelike sort of model, in the form 
of two benches with the air-tanks under the 
benches. If anything happened to the ship, 
you could go floating off with all the comforts 
of a seat on a bench in the park — if too many 



74 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

did not try to have seats at the same time. It 
was a fine night for anybody to spot us, but 
just as fine a night for us to spot them. And 
a ship cutting out devious courses at twenty- 
one knots, or whatever she was logging — she is 
not too easy to hit. To lay out for the ten 
and eleven knot cargo boats is more economical. 
Still, who knows ? We paid tribute to the 
U-boats by making detours. All the big stars 
of the night were out, and by them we could 
follow her shifting courses. But no harm; she 
had speed enough to sail the Channel sidewise 
and still bring us in by morning. The night 
grew older and cooler. The last of the people 
who had paid toll to the steward for a chair 
and rug went inside. Only one couple were 
left; and they had not hired any chair. He 
was a young officer, and they sat under his 
olive-drab blanket, on a life-raft bench athwart- 
ship. From there without moving they could 
get sidewise peeks at the climbing moon. At 
five o'clock in the morning they were still sit- 
ting there, heads together and arms across 
each other's shoulders. 

When we grew tired of walking we sought 
little anchorages. By two o'clock any man on 



CROSSING THE CHANNEL 75 

deck could have had his pick of abandoned 
chairs, but they were not good chairs — the 
extension part too short. One very young 
Canadian officer opened up his kit, made a 
bed and what lee he could of the forward 
smoke-stack. A round smoke-stack makes a 
poor lee, but once tucked in he stuck, and was 
there in the morning when clear light came. 

The moon went behind clouds, and from the 
clouds little cold showers of rain came pepper- 
ing down. Heavier clouds came, and heavier 
squalls with rain; and a mean little cross sea 
began to make. Straight ahead, above the 
little seas a light showed, and soon another — 
this a powerful one. We were still going at a 
great clip. We might know it anew by the 
way that big light jumped forward to meet us. 
Soon we had it off our bow, abeam, on our 
quarter; we were inshore. 

A destroyer came out to meet us and blinked 
a message from screened lights. More ships 
met us. We passed other ships — all kinds of 
ships, of which in detail a man must not write 
here. 

In good time and in smooth waters we made 
our landing. There was another long wait, the 



76 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

same passport grilling, but in a different way, 
and then a fast train to London. A taxi 
then, a room, a shave and bath, clean linen, 
and — oh boy ! — the roast beef of old England 
and people you knew to talk to ! 



THE CENSORS 

BEFORE a visiting correspondent can do 
anything on the other side he has to re- 
port to a censor somewhere. In London 
the Chief Admiralty Censor was a retired Royal 
Navy captain and a Sir Knight, but not wearing 
his uniform or parading his knighthood. He 
was quartered in an old dark building where 
Nelson used to hang out in the days before Tra- 
falgar. There was a sign on the door: 

DON'T KNOCK. COME IN 

He was a good sort, with not a sign about 
him of that swank which so many of the military 
caste seem to think it necessary to adopt. He 
was perfectly willing to pass me on to our naval 
base and go right ahead with my work; but he 
did not have charge of the naval base. There 
was an admiral over there — not an American 
admiral — who had full charge of our war-ships 
there. Without his permission not one of 
them could tie up to a mooring in the harbor. 
I would have to get his permission even to 

77 



7 8 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

visit the base. My very human censor in 
London said he would cable to him and let me 
know just as soon as word came. 

Awaiting the pleasure of the naval base dic- 
tator held me two weeks in London. While 
waiting I had a look over the city. It was dur- 
ing a period when the moon was ripe for air- 
raids. There were seven of them in nine nights. 
My business in life being to see things and then 
to write about them, I walked the streets dur- 
ing two of them and viewed some of the others 
from club and hotel windows. 

The underground railway stations did a great 
business while the raids were on; also bomb- 
proof basements. In a newspaper office, where 
I used to visit, were precise directions how to 
get to their bomb-proof cellar. And be sure to 
take the right one. They had two cellars, but 
only one was bomb-proof. Shops in the expen- 
sive shopping districts had signs up, advertising 
their bomb-proof cellars and inviting their pa- 
trons to make use of them; but the trouble with 
the shops was that most air-raids took place 
after they had shut up for the day. 

There was a local regulation which said that 
when an air-raid was on any person at all might 



THE CENSORS 79 

knock at the door of any house he pleased and 
claim admittance. If he were not admitted at 
once he could call a policeman, who would have 
to see that he was admitted. We used to specu- 
late on what would happen if some hobo knocked 
at the front door of the town house of the Duke 
of Westminster, say, and demanded of the but- 
ler in plush knee-breeches that he be let in. 

The chief defense against the Goths was a 
barrage of guns mounted mostly on the roofs of 
buildings. An expected air-raid would be an- 
nounced by policemen running through the 
streets on bicycles, on their chests and back were 
signs : AIR RAID ON. They also blew whistles. 

The great search-lights would sweep the skies, 
and by and by there would be a great banging of 
barrage guns. Bang, bang, bang — that would 
be the defense guns. Boom ! That would be a 
bomb. Bang, bang, bang, and Boo-oom ! The 
guns fired 3-inch shrapnel. Three miles into 
the air the shrapnel shells would go! And 
what goes up has to come down. The next 
thing would be shrapnel showering into the 
streets. It seemed to me that I would rather 
take my chance with the bombs than with the 
shrapnel. A bomb came down, exploded, and 



80 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

had done with it; but the shrapnel fell all 
over the place. 

You could see the shrapnel shells bursting 
high in the air — a beautiful sight — twinkling 
like big yellow stars, and then fading out. 
They would look more beautiful if only the 
pieces of them would stay up there after they 
burst. I was in Oxford Circus one night when 
a hatful of shrapnel fell about 20 feet away. 
One piece was about 5 inches long. Imagine 
that falling down from a height of 3 miles and 
hitting a fellow on the head. It would go clear 
on down through to your toes. Before any 
American city is raided I hope some chemist 
will invent a barrage shell which will dissipate 
all its energy and substance in the bursting. 
Surely an airplane can be wrecked by concus- 
sion. 

An Australian soldier and a girl were stand- 
ing in a doorway near me watching the shells 
burst. His was that common case — a soldier 
in London on leave, speculating on where the 
shrapnel would fall, and becoming peeved as he 
thought of it. "A hell of a place for a man 
to come on leave ! I came here to get rest and 
quiet, and I run into this gory mess !" 



THE CENSORS 81 

While waiting the permission of the British 
authorities I learned that all a correspondent's 
troubles do not come from foreign censorship. 
An American newsman had cabled over some- 
thing which did not please one of our admirals 
then in London. Meeting that same admiral, 
I put in a word for my trip to the naval base, 
thinking that he might warm up and hurry 
things along for me. He warmed up, but on 
the side away from me. He recounted the 
enormous villainy of that newsman, and in con- 
clusion said: "Perhaps, after all, the best way 
to do is not to allow you newspaper men to send 
a word at all ! " 

Such an air of finality ! He spoke as though 
he owned the navy; also the press. 

One now and again grows up like that. By 
taking care not to die, and in the absence of 
plucking boards, they rise to be admirals. 
Then side-boys, the bosun's pipes, the 13 guns 
coming over the side — all this ritual goes to 
their heads. They get to thinking after a 
while that the whole business is a tribute to 
their genius, or valor, or something or other 
personal. Perhaps all this one needed was a 
little salve; but I thought it up to some writer 



82 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

to fire a shot across his bows. So I came back 
with- "That's all very well, sir, about your 
not allowing a word to be sent, but there may 
be another point of view. There are 110,000,- 
000 people over in our country, and some oi 
them may not look on our navy as the sole 
property of its officers. They may want to 
know what that navy of theirs is doing over 
here And perhaps no harm in telling them— 
or some day they may decide to have no navy 

at a N-" . • u U~A 

Imagination was not his long suit, so he had 

no card to follow with. But he did glare 

After two weeks of waiting I got word from 
my very human London censor that I might 
leave for the naval base. I left from Euston 
Station during an air-raid. The station had 
been darkened hours earlier, and it was a new 
kind of sport going around that big black place 
to locate the cloak-room, and after you got the 
cloak-room to identify your baggage from a 
big tumbled pile. . 

I lit a cigar, and as I did a policeman jumped 
me for showing a light. Stopping to light it 
under my hat, a tall, able woman, dragging a 
trunk by the strap, bowled into me. While we 



THE CENSORS 83 

were in our compartments, the train all made 
up, there came a banging of barrage guns- 
bang, bang, bang— with now and then the 
boo-oom ! of a bomb. 

While we were waiting there we heard the 
crash of shrapnel coming through the glass roof. 
By and by another bunch of shrapnel fell with 
a fine ringing of metal on the concrete platform 
alongside the train. No harm done. The 
raiders passed, the banging and the booming 
stopped; but there was then no driver and 
stoker for the train. They had gone with the 
second load of shrapnel, and we had to wait 
two hours while they dug up a new crew. 

After three and a half hours of deck-pacing 
on the steamer, and twenty-two hours of sitting 
up straight in third-class wooden seats, I made 
the naval base; and late at night though it 
was, there was a British naval officer at the 
hotel to let me know I was to report next 
morning to the British admiral in charge. 

This admiral had a reputation in London 
for having no use for newspaper men. When 
this staff-officer asked me if I had heard of his 
admiral before, I told him what I heard in 
London. "He eats 'em alive," I was told by 



84 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

a big London journalist, and I repeated that 
now, of course without naming the journalist. 

"And what do you think of that?" asked 
this staff-officer. 

"If he tries to eat me alive I hope he chokes," 
I answered to that. I figured he would tell 
his chief that, but there had been so much 
boot-licking done by a couple of writers over 
there that, for the honor of the craft, I thought 
somebody ought to have a wallop at these 
press crushers once in a while. 

This admiral is worth a paragraph, because 
he was a type. He was a capable man up to 
his limitations; a good executive, a devotee to 
duty; but he should have lived before print- 
ing-presses were invented. Also he, too, lacked 
imagination. 

He was a man who acted as if priding him- 
self on his brusqueness of language. He sat at 
his flat desk like a pagan image, never looked 
up, never said ay, no, or go to the devil when 
I stepped in and wished him "Good morning !" 

I told him what I wanted. I wished to 
cruise with the American destroyers in their 
U-boat operations. 

His answer was a No ! Bing ! No, sir ! 



THE CENSORS 85 

"Whoops !" I said to myself. "I've come 
more than 4,000 miles, with a fine expense ac- 
count to Collier's, and I'm turned down before 
I get going. 

I spread before him my credentials — from 
the department and elsewhere. I spread be- 
fore him a letter from Colonel Roosevelt, the 
same in his own handwriting. In France I 
could have lost my passport and yet got along 
on that letter. Batteries of inspectors used to 
sit up and come to life at the sight of a letter 
in the coloners own handwriting. 

This man did not turn his head to look at 
what I might have. All the credentials in the 
world were going to have no influence with 
him. He repeated his No, putting about sev- 
enteen n's in the No ! 

Then, mildly, I told him that I thought I 
ought to have something more than a No; 
that I should have a reason to go with the No. 
He intimated that he didn't have to give rea- 
sons unless he wished to. 

I asked him why he should not wish to? 
Was it not right and fair that he should give 
a reason ? I had come more than 4,000 miles 
at great expense to Collier's, for one thing. For 



86 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

another — and this more important — there was 
an anxiety among Americans to know some- 
thing of the doings of our little destroyer flo- 
tilla. They had sailed out into the East, been 
swallowed up in the mists of the Atlantic — 
that was the last we had seen of them. They 
were the first of our forces to come in contact 
with the enemy. Were they doing good work 
over here, or were they tied up to a dock in 
some port and their officers and crews roistering 
ashore ? 

Still he said No. 

Then I went on to tell him what I had told 
our own archaic type of admiral in London — 
with additions: that it was possible that we 
had in the United States a different idea of the 
navy from what the British public held; that 
in our own country a lot of people held the no- 
tion that the navy was not the property of 
the officers, not quite so much as it was the 
property of the people; and that holding that 
view, these same people thought themselves 
entitled to know what that navy was doing to 
back their faith in it. And perhaps it was not 
the worst policy in the world to tell them what 
that navy was doing. 



THE CENSORS 87 

Still he said No. 

But why ? 

Well, for one thing (he was disintegrating a 
little), in the British service they did not allow 
civilians of any kind to go to sea with their 
ships in war time. That further — they allowed 
no reports of their work at sea to appear in the 
press. 

I pointed out that reports of fine deeds were, 
nevertheless, appearing in the press; that from 
the London dailies of the week past I had made 
clippings of such, and if he cared to see them 
I would show them to him. 

"But we allow no civilians to go cruising 
with ships at sea in war time. And I will not 
establish a precedent now." 

It was the old fetich — precedent. I thought 
of judges who used to hang men on precedent. 
He surely had what is called the mediaeval 
mind, with apologies to that same mediaeval 
age. 

I pointed out that conditions in our country 
and his were not the same. That there were 
hundreds of thousands of officers and men in 
the British navy; that those officers and men 
were regularly ashore on liberty or leave; that 



88 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

they gossiped, and that hundreds of thousands 
of officers and men gossiping could pass the 
word pretty far, especially in a country where 
there was not a single little hamlet more than 
40 miles from tide-water. With us it was dif- 
ferent. Our nearest Atlantic port was 3,000 
miles from this very naval base; and 3,000 miles 
farther to the Pacific coast, with no hundreds 
of thousands of men on liberty ashore. If men 
like myself were not allowed to tell them some- 
thing, how were they ever to learn what was 
doing ? 

I wound up by telling him he was an auto- 
crat; which disturbed his graven serenity. 
Autocrat and autocracy were not pleasant- 
sounding words just then. He snapped his 
head up, and for the first time looked as if he 
might be human. 

"We have to be autocratic in war time," he 
barked. 

"Not in everything," I barked back. 

Then, and not till then, did he soften. We 
had a little more conversation, and then he 
said he wanted that night to think over the 
unprecedented request. He would let me know 
next day. 



THE CENSORS 89 

A perfect bigot; and yet there were worse 
than he. He dared to say what he thought 
about the rights of his station. Some of his 
judgments may have been childish, but his con- 
victions were deep and honest. I respected him, 
and later came to have almost a liking for him. 

I have expended many paragraphs in telling 
of this interview, but it is meant to be more 
than a statement of one American correspon- 
dent. It is meant to explain a point of view 
which Americans may find it hard work to 
understand. That admiral in charge of our 
naval base can be multiplied all the world over. 
We have them in our own departments. 

While waiting the admiral's pleasure I had 
a look at the port. A fine harbor, a beautiful 
harbor, but disfigured now by big, ugly war- 
buildings. The houses of the port set mostly 
up on terraces. There were several streets, 
but only one real one in the place, and that 
ran along the waterside. All the pubs of the 
port were naturally located on this waterside 
street, and so no tired seafarer had to walk far 
to get a drink. Not many of our fellows were 
to be seen on the streets in daylight; but at 
night they were plentiful. A couple of movie 



9 o THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

theatres took care of about three hundred of 
them; the rest walked the waterside street. 
There was a port order there that no sailor of 
ours could stay in a pub after eight in the 
evening, so at one minute past eight that water- 
side street looked like a naval parade. For 
the rest the port offered little or nothing to 
tempt a man. It was as rainy a place as ever 
I was in, and the back streets were crowded 
with children playing. Barefooted, healthy 
children! If they had not been healthy the 
weather would surely have killed them off. It 
was a most moral port, too; too moral for some 
people, who thought to put a little life into the 
place by making nightly calls there, and made 
the nightly calls till a local clergyman protested 
from the altar, whereupon some muscular young 
Christians ran the visitors back aboard their 
train and out of the port's history. 

Next day the admiral gave me permission to 
make a cruise with our destroyers. He seemed 
to be giving it in the same stubborn fashion that 
he had at first refused it — as though he saw his 
duty in so doing. I was told that he said he 
did not think much of my manners; which, of 
course, worried me. 



THE CENSORS 91 

I knew quite a few officers in the navy who 
were commanding destroyers over there. Any 
one of them, known or unknown to me, was 
good enough for me as a skipper. No man not 
ready to take a chance puts in for command of 
a destroyer over there; and no man not fit is 
given a command. But I took passage with 
one that I had cruised with before — the alert, 
resourceful kind with plenty of nerve. If any- 
thing should happen, I knew he would be there 
with all his crew and his ship had. 

What happened while with him and at the 
naval base I have tried to tell as separate 
incidents when I can, in the chapters which 
follow. 



ONE THEY DIDNT GET 

WE were one of a group of American 
destroyers convoying a fleet of in- 
bound British merchant steamers. 
The messenger handed a radio in to the bridge. 

"We are being shelled," said the radio; 
latitude and longitude followed, as did the 
name of the ship, /. L. Luckenbach. One of 
us knew her; an American ship of 6,000 tons 
or so. 

Another radio came: "Shell burst in engine- 
room. Engineer crippled." SOS signals 
were no rare thing in those waters, but even 
so they were never passed up as lacking in- 
terest; the skipper waited for action. Pretty 
soon it came, a signal from the senior officer of 
our group. The 352 — let us give that as the 
number of our ship — was to proceed at once 
to the assistance of the Luckenbach. 

The skipper's first act was to shake up the 

second watch-officer, who also happened to be 

acting as chief engineer of the ship, and to 

pass him the word to speed the ship up to 

92 



ONE THEY DIDNT GET 93 

twenty-five knots. We were steaming at the 
head of the convoy column at eighteen knots 
at the time. The first watch-officer, having 
finished his breakfast and a morning watch, 
was just then taking a little nap on the port 
ward-room transom with his clothes and sea- 
boots still on. The active messenger shook 
him up too. The two officers made the deck 
together, one buttoning his blouse over a heavy 
sweater, the other a sheepskin coat over his 
blouse. 

Word was sent to the Luckenbach that we 
were on the way. Within three minutes the 
radio came back: "Our steam is cut off. How 
soon can you get here ? 

Up through the speaking-tube came a voice 
just then to say that we were making twenty- 
five knots. At the same moment our executive 
officer, who also happened to be the navigator, 
handed the skipper a slip of paper with the 
course and distance to the Luckenbach, saying: 
"That was at nine-fifteen." 

It was then nine-seventeen. Down the tube 
to the engine-room went the order to make 
what speed she could. Also the skipper said: 
"She ought to be tearing off twenty-eight soon 



94 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

as she warms up. And she's how far now? 
Eighty-two miles ? Send this radio: 'Stick to 
it — will be with you within three hours. ,,, 

By this time all hands had an idea of what 
was doing and all began to brighten up. Men 
off watch, supposed to be asleep in their cots 
below, began to stroll up and have a look around 
decks. Some lingered near the wireless door, 
and every time the messenger passed they sort 
of stuck their ears up at him. He was a long- 
legged lad in rubber boots who took the deck 
in big strides. His lips never opened, but his 
eyes talked. The men turned from him with 
pleased expressions on their faces. 

There was a little steel shelter built on to the 
chart house to port. It was for the protection 
of the forward gun crew, who had to be ready 
for action at any minute. Men standing by 
for action and not getting it legitimately, try 
to get it in some other way. So they used to 
burn up their spare energy in arguing. It did 
not matter what the argument was about — the 
President, Roosevelt, the Kaiser, the world 
series — any subject would do so long as it 
would grow into an argument. The rest of the 
crew could hear them — threatening to bust 



ONE THEY DIDN'T GET 95 

each other's eyes out — clear to the skid deck 
sometimes. But now all quiet here, and soon 
they were edging out of their igloo and calling 
down to the fellows on the main deck: "That 
right about a ship being shelled by a sub ? Yes. 
Well!" They went down to their shelter 
smiling at one another. 

Ship's cooks, who rarely wander far from their 
cosey galley stoves, began to show on deck; 
ward-room stewards came out on deck; a gang 
black-painting a tank hatch — they all slipped 
over to the rail and, leaning as far out as they 
could and not fall overboard, had long looks 
ahead. And then they all turned to see what 
352's smoke-stacks were doing. There was 
great hope there. 

The black smoke was getting blacker and 
heavier. They were sure feeding the oil to her. 
The chief came up the engine-room ladder. 
An old petty officer waylaid him. Doing well, 
was she, sir ? — She was. Hem ! About how 
well, sir ? — Damn' well. She was kicking out 
twenty-eight — twenty-eight good — and picking 
up. 

Twenty-eight and picking up ? And the best 
she showed in her builders' trial was twenty- 



96 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

nine-one ! What d'y' know about her ? Some 
little old packet, hah ? 

It was a fine day, the one fine day of the trip, 
a rarely fine day for this part of the northern 
ocean at this time of year. It was cloudy, but 
it was calm. There was a long, easy swell on, 
but no sea to make her dive or pitch. The 
swell, when she got going in good shape, set 
her to swinging a little, but that did not 
hurt. A destroyer just naturally likes to swing 
a little. 

Swinging along she went, rolling one rail 
down and then the other, but not making it 
hard to stand almost anywhere around deck, 
except that when you went aft there was a 
drive of air that lifted you maybe a little faster 
than you started out to go. Swinging along 
she went, a long, easy swing, carrying a long 
white swash to either side of her, vibrating a 
thousand to the minute on her fantail, stream- 
ing out a long white and pale-blue wake for 
as far as we could see, and just clear of her 
taffrail piling up the finest little hill of clear 
white boiling water. 

Twenty-nine, they say, she was making, and 
still picking up. What ! Thirty ? And a little 



ONE THEY DIDNT GET 97 

more left in her ? What dy know—some little 
baby, hah ? 

Another radio came to the bridge: "A shell 
below our water-line. Settling, but still afloat 
and still fighting." 

"Good work. Stick to it," they said on the 
bridge, and wondered whether it was the skip- 
per or the radio man who was framing the mes- 
sages. He had the dramatic instinct, whoever 
he was. 

Perhaps twenty minutes later came: "Water 
in our engine-room." 

And then: "Fire in our forehold, but will 
not surrender. Look for our boats." 

And: "They are now shooting at our an- 



tennae." 



Radios to the bridge are not posted up for 
the crew to gossip over, but there was no keep- 
ing that last one under cover. 

"Shelling their attenay ? Well, the morti- 
fying dogs ! Whatever you do, don't let 'em 
get your attenay, old bucket." 

Our thirty-knot clip was eating up the road. 
We were getting near the spot. The canvas 
caps came off the guns, and the gun crews were 
told to load and stand by. A chief gunner's 



98 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

mate was told to make ready his torpedo-tubes. 
He was a famous torpedo-man. He would stay 
up all night with an ailing gyro or hydrostatic 
piston and not even ask to sleep in next morn- 
ing for a reward, and he had a record of making 
nothing but hits at torpedo-practice. But he 
had been glum all the trip. He had stayed 
past the legal hour on liberty the last time in, 
and the shore patrol had come along and scooped 
him up. A court-martial was coming to him 
and so he had been glum; but not now. He 
went around decks smiling, with a little steel 
thing that looked like a wrist-bag but wasn't. 
It held the keys to the magazines. 

Pretty soon he had torpedo-tubes swinging 
inboard and outboard, and between every pair 
of tubes a man sitting up in an iron seat that 
looked like the kind that goes with a McCor- 
mick reaper, which all helped the gunner's 
mate to feel better. He stopped ten seconds 
to tell the story of the new gun-crew man who 
was sent up the yard to the storekeeper for a 
pair of spurs to ride the torpedo-tubes with. 

There were four guns, one forward, one aft, 
and two in the waist. They had been slushed 
down with vaseline to keep the salt-water rust 



ONE THEY DIDNT GET 99 

off; now they were swabbing the grease off. 
Grease on the outside of a gun does not affect 
the shooting of the inside, but a gun ought 
naturally to look slick going into action. 

Trainers and pointers stood beside their 
loaded guns, and other members of the gun 
crew held up shells, the noses of the shells 
stuck into the deck mat and the butts resting 
against the young chests of the gun crews as 
they stood in line. There was a nineteen-year- 
old lad who, when I knew him two years before, 
was doing boy's work in the Collier bookbindery. 
Now he was a gun-captain standing handy to 
his little pet and trying not to look too proud 
when he peeked up toward where I was. 

The foretop reported smoke on the horizon 
ahead. That would be on the Luckenbach. 
And where she was the U-boat was. The 
forward gun was trained a point to right of the 
smoke. 

One senior watch-officer, now in the foretop, 
called down that he could now see the ship. 
Smoke was coming out of her hull. Soon he 
reported shells splashing alongside of her. 
Those would be from the U-boat. Soon we 
all could see the ship from the bridge. 



ioo THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

The foretop then reported the U-boat. 
She was almost dead ahead. She could not be 
seen from the bridge, but, directed by the fore- 
top, the gun was trained on the horizon dead 
ahead; 11,000 yards was the range. The gun 
was one of the latest type — only a 4-inch — 
but a great little gun just the same. 

"Train and fire," said the skipper. Bo-o-m ! 
it went, flame and smoke. We could not see 
the splash from the bridge, nor could they in 
the foretop. It probably dropped beyond the 
submarine, which soon we could see — a pretty 
big fellow she looked with two guns. She had 
been shelling the ship even while we were run- 
ning up, and as our first shot boomed out she 
let go another shell. We expected her to send 
a couple our way — she probably carried bigger 
guns than we did — but she did not; she let go 
another at the steamer. "Maybe at the an- 
tennae," said a chief quartermaster on the 
bridge. 

We shortened our range. The gun was 
trained and ready for firing when a sea rolled 
up on us. The ocean was smooth enough, but 
the swell was still on — a long swell of the kind 
that does not sputter, but walk right up and 



ONE THEY DIDN'T GET 101 

announce their arrival by arriving. This long 
blue swell rolled up to our bow. 

We were doing thirty knots and at thirty 
knots a little ship doesn't need a masthead 
sea to get action. We went into it head first. 
It came right on over our bow, over our foc'sle 
head, over the forward gun. The shield to the 
forward gun stood probably six feet above the 
foc'sle deck. That wave rolled right over the 
gun-shield. 

There was a C. P. O. standing quite close to 
the shield. He grabbed a vertical rod on the 
outside of the shield, and just managed to hook 
in the fingers of one hand. The sea, all white 
and solid, rolled over the gun and the shield. 
The C. P. O. was swept off his feet, but he was 
a stubborn one and hung on. Behind him was 
the officer in charge of the firing. When he 
saw that sea rolling up there was nothing near 
but the C. P. 0., so he grabbed the C. P. O. 
with both hands around the waist. He too 
was swept off his feet, but he hung on — to the 
C. P. 0. They both floated flat out on the 
white roller, and the white roller went smash-o ! 
up against the chart house. 

The chart house was just under the bridge, 



102 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

and the glass windows had been taken out from 
the bridge railing so that they would not be 
smashed by the concussion of the forward gun. 
We were leaning out of these open spaces, just 
getting ready to laugh at the people below 
when, swabbo ! up the side of the chart house 
and through the open spaces and into our open 
mouths came the wash of the sea. 

Another wave followed that one, but not 
quite so high. As soon as it passed the forward 
gun was trained and fired. We had been 
making great leaps ahead all this time — the 
range now was under 9,000 yards. The fore- 
top reported it short. 

The U-boat was still there. We still ex- 
pected her to send one our way. But nothing 
doing for us. She sent another shell toward 
the steamer. The steamer had quit firing. 
No use. The U-boat had simply taken posi- 
tion beyond range of the steamer's guns and 
leisurely as she pleased was shelling her. Our 
third shell landed close to the sub. And then 
down she went and wasted no time at it. Be- 
fore we could train and fire again she was gone. 

The sub, as we learned later, had landed 
fifteen shells into the steamer and wounded 



ONE THEY DIDNT GET 103 

nine of her people, of whom three were of the 
bluejacket gun crew. 

One young bluejacket had been hit twice. 
He was carrying a shell to the gun when he 
caught the second one — a piece of flying shell 
in his shoulder. He laid his own shell on the 
deck to see how about it, and got hit again; 
this time in what our navy calls the stern sheets. 
That made him mad. He shook his fist toward 
the sub. "No damn' German's going to hit 
me three times and get away with it." He 
grabbed his shell off the deck and slammed it 
into the gun-breech. "Hand it to 'em, Joe!" 
he yelled to the gun-pointer. Joe did his best, 
but he didn't have the gun— the shot splashed 
where most of them had, about half a mile short 
of the sub. 

Still pouring the black smoke out of our fun- 
nels, we leaped toward the Luckenbach and 
hailed her through the megaphone when we 
breasted her. She hailed back that she had 
water in her afterhold and fire in her forehold, 
and gave us the number of her wounded. Two 
of the three wounded bluejackets were injured 
seriously. We could see them stretched out 
under the gun. 



104 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

We were steaming around the Luckenbach at 
twenty knots while we were hailing: this in 
case the sub took it in her head to pop up 
again and catch us slowed down. We did slow 
down and stop when it came time to clear away 
a whaleboat and send it over to the steamer 
with our senior watch-officer and the surgeon, 
with the needful surgical supplies. 

We continued to steam circles around the 
steamer all the time they were aboard, with 
our lookouts keeping eyes skinned for the 
U-boat. By her manner of shelling the steamer 
after he had opened fire our skipper judged 
she was a tough one. She did show once while 
we were circling the Luckenbach. Her periscope 
popped up about a mile abeam of us. It may 
have popped up again — it was getting to be a 
nice little choppy sea good for sub work and 
no saying that it was not — but we only sighted 
it once, and then it did not linger. 

The sea was growing lumpy when the whale- 
boat came bouncing back with our senior offi- 
cer. It was right about the Luckenbach having 
nine injured, but all would get well. The doctor 
was looking after them. She was a cotton 
steamer. The kid who had been hit twice was 



ONE THEY DIDN'T GET 105 

all right. He was walking around deck with 
his cap over his port ear and proud as Billy-be- 
Damn — three times wounded by German shell 
fire and got away with it ! 

The fire in the forehold ? Most of it was from 
two old mattresses — at least that was all he 
found. 

"Did you put the fire out ?" 

"Yes, sir. The steamer's crew were too tired 
to do any more hustling around to put any 
fire out, so we got out a hose and put it out." 

"How about that bulkhead ?" asked the skip- 
per. "He hailed that he didn't think it would 
stand the strain of steaming." 

"Maybe so, sir, but I don't agree with him. 
I don't see how that bulkhead's going to cave 
in with all those bales of cotton jammed up 
against it. What the most of them over there 
are suffering from is the reaction from that 
three hours of shelling— everything was looking 
pretty blue to them, sir." 

"Can he make steam?" 

"Yes, sir. Their engineer has two ribs 
busted in and a piece of shrapnel in his neck 
and part of his foot shot away. But he's all 
right. He was lying down when I first saw 



io6 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

him, cursing the Germans blue. Then he says: 
'Put me on my feet, men.' A couple of oilers 
put him on his feet. I thought he was going to 
give orders to make steam, but he only wanted 
to be stood up so as he could curse the Germans 
a little better. Lying down interfered with 
his wind. He rolled it out in one steady stream 
for ten minutes. He was an Italian, or maybe 
a Spaniard, and his English wasn't perfect, 
but he could talk like hell. He's all right. 
He'll get steam up, sir." 

By and by they did make steam and begin 
to move on a course our skipper wigwagged to 
them. The skipper left the surgeon aboard, 
and at twenty knots the 352 steamed more 
circles around the steamer, all lookouts mean- 
while skinning their eyes afresh for signs of the 
sub. We could make out a lot of smoke on 
the southern horizon. It was the convoy we 
had left in the morning. An hour later the 
Luckenbach found her legs. 

Our cripple broke no records for speed, but 
she was making revolutions, and by five o'clock 
we rejoined the convoy with her alongside. 

So here is an eight hours' log for the 352: 
At nine in the morning she was responding to 



ONE THEY DIDNT GET 107 

S S-ing ninety miles away; at five in the 
afternoon we had her tucked away for the night 
in the column. 

The tall quartermaster came up on the bridge 
to stand his watch. We were in our regular 
position, at the head of the column at twenty 
knots. He looked back at the fleet. "There 
you are, Lucky Bag. They must have had 
you checked up and counted in, a big ship and 
a three-million-dollar cargo, this morning, and 
here you are to-night — one they didn't get." 



THE DOCTOR TAKES CHARGE 

EVERY American destroyer over here 
rates a young surgeon. What some of 
these surgeons don't know about sea- 
going can be found in about six hundred pages 
of Knight's "Modern Seamanship," but that 
does not matter much. Let them look after 
the casualties; there are capable young naval 
officers to look after the seagoing end. 

Most of these young surgeons have a taste 
for adventure. If they had not, they would 
not be over here. The 352 drew one, born and 
raised in a Southern State. Before coming 
over here he had viewed the Atlantic once or 
twice from a distance, which did not quite con- 
tent him. His ancestors must have crossed that 
same Atlantic to get to America, and some- 
where within him was a high-pitched string 
that vibrated to every thrill of that same ocean 
now. 

He used to speak of these things in the 
smoking-room of the King's Hotel here, which 

is where every destroyer officer comes at least 
108 



THE DOCTOR TAKES CHARGE 109 

once between cruises to get a — cup of coffee. 
He would have liked to make a few sea voyages 
when he was a little younger, but if a fellow 
is ever going to amount to anything he has to 
settle down sometime and become a respectable 
member of society — so his folks were always 
saying, and so he took up medicine. He liked 
his profession. A doctor can do a heap of 
good in a suffering world — especially if people 
will only let him. But so many people want 
a young doctor to be experienced before they 
ever will call him in! "Get experience, ,, they 
say; and not a doggone one in a dozen'll ever 
give a fellow any chance to get the experience. 
"What the most of 'em want is for some one 
else to give us the experience." He did as 
well as the next young doctor, but at times he 
would grow almost melancholy sitting before 
the smoking-room fire telling of his waiting for 
business in his home town. 

He was not at all melancholy by nature. 
He could keep the ward-room mess ringing with 
darky stories on a quiet night in port. His 
messmates called him Doc; and when the ship 
was at sea they were all glad to see him on the 
bridge studying things out. He had plenty of 



no THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

time for that. In two cruises his only cases 
were one quartermaster, who got hove across 
the bridge and broke his nose, and a gunnels 
mate who broke his leg by being bounced out 
of his bunk one windy night. They were a dis- 
gustingly healthy lot, these destroyer crews. 

But he felt pleased just to be out to sea. 
These high hills of moving water sure did give 
a little ship heaps of action sometimes. He 
would watch them from the bridge. He would 
watch the officer of the watch too, and the man 
at the wheel, and the lookouts with their eyes 
skinned for U-boats, and the signal quarter- 
masters balanced on the flying bridge and send- 
ing their messages in a jumping sea-way. He 
would go down to the chart house with the 
navigator and stand by to pass him dividers 
and parallels. He would stop to sigh when he 
thought that if somebody had only tipped him 
ofF in time he might have gone to Annapolis 
and right now be a young naval officer dashing 
around on one of these same destroyers. Still, 
being a surgeon on one of them wasn't too bad. 
If they had a battle or anything, a ship's doc- 
tor wasn't going to be too far away. 

It was in his third cruise that the 352 got 



THE DOCTOR TAKES CHARGE m 

the SOS which resulted in the rescue of the 
big steamer spoken of. There had been other 
S S's — any number of them — but this time 
there was something doing for our young doc- 
tor. When she signalled that nine of her 
people had been wounded by shell and shrap- 
nel fire, and the 352's skipper ordered a deck 
officer and a whale-boat away, he also told 
Doc to break out his medical gear and go 
along. Doc already had his surgical gear 
ready; from the first word of the shelling he 
had gone below, and now everything was laid 
out ready for action on the ward-room tran- 
som. 

Over to the ship they went, all hands in life- 
vests, and while the deck officer of the 352 
was cross-questioning the captain and engineer, 
and looking around to see how much damage 
had been done and so on, Doc was rigging up 
an operating-table between the chart house and 
the chart deck rail, slinging the table in sort 
of hammock style so that when the ship rolled 
she would not roll his patients overboard. 

Doc was no mean little operator. The great 
danger to most of the wounded men was of in- 
fection. One after the other, he had his cases 



ii2 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

up, asked about four questions, had about four 
looks, and went to it. No knowing that the 
U-boat might pop up again and try a few 
more shells, or that a bulkhead would not give 
way, or a boiler blow up when they tried to 
make steam below. No knowing; no. 

Up they came to his swinging table, where 
Doc took a probe, poked into the wound, 
wrapped cotton around the probe, soaked it 
in iodine, jabbed it in, twisted it around, 
swabbed it out, dressed it down, slapped the 
patient on the chest, said "Next," and did it 
all over again. 

"Next! You'd think it was a blessed bar- 
ber's shop," Doc heard one of them say. Only 
he was an officer — by the back of his head 
Doc knew it — some of them would have told 
him what they thought of his rapid-fire action. 
But it was no time for canoodling — it was war, 
and they were all rated as grown men and so 
able to stand a few little painful touches. 

One terribly wounded patient gave him 
worry. On him Doc worked with great care. 
He was working on him, all the others being 
attended to, when the 352's deck officer came 
to say that he was going back to the destroyer 



THE DOCTOR TAKES CHARGE 113 

to report. "The captain of this ship wants to 
abandon her/' said the deck officer. 

"Abandon ship and we will never be able to 
get this man I got here now off her — not in 
this sea, sir," said Doc. "And if he's left 
alone for two hours, he'll sure die." 

"I'll signal what the skipper says." The 
officer went off with his crew in the whale-boat, 
leaving a hospital steward and a signal quarter- 
master to stay with the doctor. 

Doc was working away on his hard case 
when his quartermaster came to say that the 
352 had signalled that they were to stay aboard 
and that the steamer was to get under way and 
steer a course south half east magnetic. 

The doctor, without looking up, said: "All 
right." 

"Shall I tell the steamer's captain, sir?" 

This time Doc looked up. "Why, of course, 
tell him. Why not ? Why do you ask me 
that?" 

"You are the ranking naval officer aboard 
here, sir. I take orders from you now, sir." 

For about four seconds Doc neglected his 
patient. That was so; so he was. 

"Yes, tell the captain." 



ii 4 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

The quartermaster ran up the bridge ladder. 
Doc gazed over the chart-rail down to the deck, 
up and around on the ship. "Doggone !" he 
breathed. "I am the ranking — I'm the only 
naval officer present. ,, Then he shook his 
head and bent to his patient. He might have 
the rank, but the last thing he was going to do 
was to butt in on any regular ship's officers. 

The disabled ship went on to her new course, 
south half east magnetic, with the destroyer 
steaming twenty-knot circles around her. And 
late in the afternoon they made the convoy. 
By night she was tucked in the rear of twenty 
other ships, the doctor and his emergency staff 
still aboard. They were to remain aboard 
until the steamer made port. 

That same night something happened. On 
the steamer they did not know just what it 
was. They saw a column of white, a column 
of black — those who happened to be looking — 
another column of white, from the big ship of 
the fleet. And then dark came. There were 
radios flying about, but they were code mes- 
sages and the radio man could not decode them 
because the first thing the steamer captain had 
done that morning when it looked as though 



THE DOCTOR TAKES CHARGE 115 

the U-boat was going to make them take to 
the boats was to heave the code-books over- 
board. In the morning they would know. 

Morning came, but with it not a ship in 
sight. Of twenty ships and a group of de- 
stroyers the night before, not one now. It was 
his signal-officer who thought it out first. 
"U-boats thick last night, sir, and the convoy 
must V got orders to disperse or else change 
course," he said to the doctor. 

"That sounds like good dope to me too." 
He turned to the steamer's captain. "Where 
were you bound, sir?" 

"To Havre." 

The doctor could see nothing else but to 
proceed to Havre, and on a zigzag course. 
The old captain did not know about the zig- 
zagging; he had never done any zigzagging 
and did not know why he should now — besides, 
it mixed his reckoning all up. 

The doctor said he would fix the zigzagging 
part of it, and, telling his hospital steward to 
have a special eye out for the very sick man, 
went into the chart house and proceeded to 
explain the zigzagging stuff. He paused to 
recall all he had ever learned while elbowing 



n6 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

the 352's navigator over the chart-table; also 
the answers he had got to his questions while 
so doing. 

You steer 45 degrees off the course you really 
want to make for so many minutes and then you 
steer 90 degrees from that for the same number 
of minutes back toward the course you really 
want to make — see, so — and that gives so many 
minutes to the good — see. That was one way. 

"How many minutes ?" asked the captain. 

Doc had to stop and think that over. "Twice 
the square of the total minutes — no, no. Take 
twice the sum of the squares of the minutes on 
the two legs — and get the square root and then 
you have the hypothenuse of the two sides of the 
triangle; that is, you have the number of min- 
utes' steaming you make good on your real 
course." 

The old skipper knew nothing of square 
roots or hypothenuses or anything that looked 
like 'em, and he had always laid his course 
out by compass points. 

"All right," said Doc, and after a while laid 
out the zigzag courses in compass points. 

The old fellow did not quite like it, so all 
that day Doc alternated between his bad pa- 



THE DOCTOR TAKES CHARGE 117 

tient and the bridge to keep the skipper re- 
assured about the zigzagging. Also he urged 
the crew to have a special watch out for U-boats. 

That night Doc and the seasoned signal 
quartermaster stood alternate watches on the 
bridge. Doc would take a nap; the quarter- 
master would take a nap; between them they 
were figuring to keep a sort of official navy 
lookout. There were ship's crew men on the 
lookout too, but the reaction from the shelling 
had set in. Doc used to find them asleep in 
the bridge wings. 

Just before dawn of the second morning Doc 
saw a shadow looming on their starboard bow. 
He had another look. It was another steamer 
— a big one. She was drawing nearer. "See 
that ?" he called to the man at the wheel. 

"See what ?" sort of drowsed out the man at 
the wheel. 

The trusty quartermaster from the 352 was 
getting a wink under the bridge-rail. Doc 
yelled to him, at the same time grabbing up 
the megaphone and roaring into the night air: 
"Where you-all going? Where the devil you- 
all going? Can't you-all see where you're 
going ? Keep off — keep off." 



n8 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

"Can't you see where you're going? — keep 
off yourself." 

By that time the signal quartermaster was 
awake and bounding across the bridge. He 
grabbed the wheel and began to spin it around. 
The ship's bow turned. Doc saw the big hulk 
go by him in the dark. 

"Good work," said Doc. "How'd you spot 
him so quick?" 

"I didn't spot him, sir. I don't see him yet. 
I went by the sound' of his voice." 

"Special little angel perched up aloft to look 
out for Jack when at sea — " sang Doc. "I 
thought that was a nursery rhyme. Now I 
know it's true. Between you and me, quarter- 
master, we'll get this ship to port yet." 

They finished that night and the next day 
without seeing anything or having anything 
happen. Nothing except the argument about 
the forward compartment. 

Among the shells which had come aboard the 
steamer was one which had punched a fine big 
hole in her bow. The ship's crew had put a 
plug there which worked all right till the ship 
took to rolling, which it did this day. The hole 
was just at the water-line. Before they knew 



THE DOCTOR TAKES CHARGE 119 

anything about it there was the plug gone and 
the water up to a man's knees in the forward 
compartment. Doc said it should be stopped. 

The old skipper wanted to know who was 
going to stop it. His crew? No, sir. He 
wouldn't ask any of 'em to go down there — 
besides, they wouldn't go. They were all used 
up since the battle with the U-boat. It made 
no difference if the ship sank. He'd had so 
muclrtrouble that trip anyway that he wasn't 
too sure he wouldn't just as soon see her sink. 
He wasn't too sure they wouldn't all be better 
off in the boats. The U-boat had ordered 
them into the boats, and, only the destroyer 
had come along when it did, they would V 
taken to the boats, and then they'd 'a' been 
picked up and no more watches or ships or 
holes in the for'ard compartment to worry 
about. 

There was nothing left but for Doc to call 
for volunteers from among the gun crew. They 
were bluejackets, and their only complaint 
on the trip had been that the U-boat's guns 
had outranged their guns. They volunteered 
in a body — even the three wounded members. 
Doc took all the sound ones and went down 



120 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

into the forward compartment with a mattress 
and some scantling he found in the hold. The 
water was by then about up to the men's 
waists. It was hard, cold work, but they got it 
done — the mattress stuffed into the hole and 
the scantling shoring it up. It still leaked, 
but not much — a little auxiliary steam in there 
at intervals did not quite keep her dried out, 
but it kept her head above water, so that was 
all right. All that day she was a lone steamer 
plugging her halting way over a wide sea. 
Seven knots was her speed, and all hands 
tickled to be making that because of weak 
places showing from time to time in her steam 
department — damages by shell fire which they 
did not appreciate properly at first. 

They were nearing the coast of France. They 
would have to make a landfall soon, and run- 
ning without lights, as they were, made things 
hard, so the old skipper began to talk to Doc. 
If the doctor didn't mind, he would take full 
charge of the ship himself. She was a big ship 
with a three-million-dollar cargo, and if any- 
thing happened her, the owners would naturally 
look to him, the master, for it. 

Doc thought it was a pretty cool way to wash 



THE DOCTOR TAKES CHARGE 121 

out all record of what his little force had done, 
but he also recognized the old fellow's position. 
"It sounds reasonable," said Doc, "but I think 
you ought to give me an idea of what you're 
going to do. ,, 

"There's been no sun for a sight these two 
days, but we were here" — he made a new dot 
over an old one on the chart— "and logging so 
many knots to-day noon we ought to be" — he 
made another dot — "about here now." 

"How about the tides ?" 

"The tides ? Oh, yes ! Well, I don't know 
about the tides. You see, I never made a port 
in France before." 

"You didn't?" 

There was a coast chart-book in the rack. 
Doc took it down and began to read it. He 
made regular trips down to see how his wounded 
patient was getting on, but always hurried back 
to his coast chart-book. Interesting things in 
chart-books— he used to read them aboard the 
destroyer. 

That night the first mate came up on the 
bridge. Doc asked him what kind of a light 
he expected to pick up. The mate told him. 
Doc thought he was wrong, and said so. 



122 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

Well, that was the light the old man had 
said they would make. Where was he now? 
Asleep, and Lord knows he needed it. 

Doc did not wake him up. He had argued 
enough with him, but he didn't think the old 
man had allowed for the tides, and if anything 
happened there would be no more arguments — 
he would just assert his rank and take charge 
of the ship. 

Doc went below, gave his worst wounded pa- 
tient a night potion and saw him to sleep. He 
also went down to see the chief engineer, who 
had been wounded three times — once in the 
head. The Doc talked to him awhile — he was 
inclined to rave — gave him a half-grain jolt of 
morphine and saw him to sleep. He told the 
signal quartermaster that he had better have 
a nap before he dropped in his tracks. 

" But the night-watches, sir ? " 

"We'll leave the night-watches to the ship's 
crew and Providence. The watch may sleep 
on the job, but the Lord won't — at least I hope 
not. Anyway, I know I'm doggone tired," 
said Doc, and turned in. 

Doc could have slept longer — about twenty- 
four hours longer, he thought, when he found 



THE DOCTOR TAKES CHARGE 123 

himself awake. It was a sort of grinding under 
the ship which had wakened him. 

By his illuminated wrist-watch he saw that 
it was three o'clock — three in the afternoon, he 
hoped. But it wasn't. It was three in the 
morning. He had been asleep two hours. 

He went on deck just as his signal-officer 
came to tell him the ship was ashore. 

Doc found the old man and the mate look- 
ing over charts under a hand-light in the 
chart house. "I could V bet we'd V picked 
up that other light," the old man was saying. 

"The bettin' part don't explain it," said the 
mate. "A fine place to be high and dry and 
a U-boat come along in the morning and plunk 
us another few shells between our livers and 
lights. I'm tired of keeping my mind on 
U-boats." 

That was when Doc horned in on the old 
skipper. "I been pretty easy with you-all. 
You ought to been twenty miles farther east. 
You listened to me and you-all would have 
been. Look here" — he hauled down the chart- 
book and showed them. "And now I'll take 
charge." 

It was low tide when she ran on to the beach. 



i2 4 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

With the flood-tide and the engines kicking 
back they had her off at daylight. After that, 
with Doc on the bridge, everything seemed to 
go all right. The mate said he must have 
come over the side with a medicine-chest full 
of horseshoes. By eleven o'clock next morn- 
ing they were taking on a pilot outside Havre. 

Havre is a regular French port with jetties 
leading down from the heart of the residen- 
tial places almost. The people, seeing her 
coming, she bearing the evident marks of her 
late battle, crowded down to greet her. About 
five minutes was enough for her story to cir- 
culate. The bluejacket gun crew, being in uni- 
form, caught their eyes first. They cheered 
them, the brav' Americains. And then the 
wounded came. Oh, the pity ! Three or four 
of the wounded, who had all that day been 
cavorting around deck, saw the dramatic values 
and assumed most languid poses. Oh, the great 
pity ! Whereat two more almost fainted. 

The worst wounded one — there was no pre- 
tense about him — had to be carried down the 
gang-plank. Doc went with him. Good nurs- 
ing was what he needed; and he was going to 
see that he got it. 



THE DOCTOR TAKES CHARGE 125 

He got it in the port hospital; and then Doc 
and his two assistants turned in and slept six- 
teen hours by Doc's illuminated wrist-watch. 

After cabling and getting his orders, Doc 
headed for his base. Their journey back by 
train and steamer — the two men in dungarees 
and life-vests, and Doc in sea-boots and one of 
those sheepskin coats they wear on destroyers 
— was noteworthy but not seagoing, so it is 
passed up here. 

Doc made his port. We met him in the 
King's Hotel smoke-room, and he told us all 
about it. We had had it already from the quar- 
termaster and the hospital steward, but Doc 
was to have a little touch of his own. 

"There she was, a little down by the head, 
but safe in port," concluded Doc; "and while 
I was waiting for my orders I had a look around 
the place. There was a little square there with 
little cafes all around the square, and I sat in 
front of one of them and had my coffee." 

"So this was France," I kept saying to my- 
self. All my life I had been reading more or 
less about France, and it used to be a sort of 
dream to me to be thinking I might some day 
get there. And there I was— only a little corner 



126 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

of France, but it was France, and a pretty 
sunny little place after our week to sea. 

"And while I sat there people came up and 
looked me over. I thought it was my needing 
a shave, but it wasn't. I had my cap on, and 
by my cap they knew me for the officer of the 
heroes of the ship. After a while they came up 
and spoke to me. I didn't get quite what they 
were all saying, but I was one brave man — we 
were all brave men, there was no doubt about 
that part. When they all got through one 
little girl came up and gave me a bunch of 
flowers." 

He pulled out some kind of a faded flower 
and sighed. "She was about eight years old." 

"No use talking," I said, "it's a great life." 
And the quartermaster — he stood with his sig- 
nal-flags sticking out under his armpit — said: 

"Yes, sir, a great life if we don't weaken." 

"What's there to weaken about ? Something 
doing every doggone minute since we left our 
ship." 



THE 343 STAYS UP 

MOST shore-going people, after a look 
at a fleet of our destroyers, would not 
mark them high up for safe ships. 
They are too long and slim and floppety-like. 

But no one can tell their officers and crews 
anything like that. They have tried them out 
and know. You take a destroyer in a ninety- 
mile breeze of wind, put her stern to it, give her 
five or six knots' headway, and there she'll lay 
till the North Atlantic blows dry. 

And that is not their only quality. Speed, 
of course; but not that either. They have a 
way of staying up after being cut up. There 
was that one which was of the first to cross over 
for the U-boat hunting game. One dark night 
she was struck amidships by a 2,000-ton British 
sloop-of-war. In crowded quarters and steam- 
ing without lights those little collisions are 
bound to occur. 

This one was hit amidships — bam! — and 
amidships is a bad place for a destroyer to be 
127 



128 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

hit — her big engine and boiler-room compart- 
ment lie amidships. 

This one of ours was hit so hapd that nobody 
aboard ever thought she would stay up. She 
did go down till her deck was flush with the 
water's edge, but there she stayed; and her 
crew, climbing back aboard, took a hawser from 
the sloop-of-war, which towed her back to port. 
She was a fine heartening sight coming in. If 
she could come back, why worry about minor 
mishaps ? 

One of them — the 343 say — had performed 
her duty, which was to see a small convoy to a 
point well on toward a large port, and was re- 
turning to the naval base. 

She was in no great rush, and, it happening 
to be smooth water, which is a rare thing up 
this way at this time of the year, she stopped 
for a little needed gun practice. 

There was no more thought than usual of 
U-boats. Nobody would have been surprised 
if one popped up — it was a coast where they 
had been regularly operating — but no one was 
particularly expecting one. 

Destroyers are bad medicine if you do not 
get to them quickly, and lately the U-boats 



THE 343 STAYS UP 129 

seemed to care more to get merchant ships; 
but this day the lookouts were not loafing on 
their job on that account. 

The 343 got through with her target practice, 
and, except for a few gunners' mates still cod- 
dling their pet guns, the crew were taking it easy 
around deck; and also, because of the smooth 
sea, the ship was making easy weather of it 
toward port. 

Seeing a periscope is oftentimes a matter of 
luck. When they stay up it is easy enough, 
but when they are porpoising, shooting it up 
for just a look around, you have to be looking 
right at one. What they first saw on the 343 
was the wake of this torpedo, coming on at a 
forty-knot clip for the waist of the ship. 

The commander of the 343 was on the bridge 
at the time and saw the wake almost with the 
cry of the lookout. The wake was then pretty 
handy to the ship, and the torpedo itself would 
be fifty feet or so ahead of the wake. 

There was no getting away from it then. 
The only hope was to take it somewhere else 
than amidships. Engine and boiler compart- 
ments were amidships. If it struck her there 
they might as well call it taps for all hands. 



i 3 o THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

So the commander put the wheel hard over — 
to take it on his quarter, where there was also 
a chance that it would pass under her. 

Torpedoes generally strike twelve to fifteen 
feet under water, but just before this one could 
make the 343 it broached — came to the surface 
of the water — but without slacking her forty- 
knot speed. It was unusual and spectacular. 
The sun shone on the polished sides of her as 
she leaped from the sea. 

She struck the 343 above her water-line and 
pretty well aft. Those on her deck who saw 
her make that last leap out of water hoped for 
the best, though waiting for the worst. But 
the resulting explosion was nothing tremendous 
— so officers and men say, and so adding a lit- 
tle more data to U-boat history. The bark of 
one of their own little 4-inch guns was more 
impressive. There was a flame and an up- 
shooting cloud of black smoke, followed in- 
stantly by another explosion, that of their own 
depth charges, of which there were two of 300 
pounds each in the stern. Those who had any 
thoughts about it at the time were sure that if 
the torpedo did not get them the depth charges 
would. 



THE 343 STAYS UP 131 

When they went to look they found that 
thirty-odd feet of the after end of their ship had 
been blown clean off. The torpedo had hit 
them on the port side, and the wreckage was 
hanging from the starboard quarter. Of the 
after gun only the base was left; they never 
did see any of the rest of it. The gunner's mate, 
one of those men who love to keep a gun in 
shape, was swabbing it out at the time, and 
they never saw anything of him again. 

The chief petty officers' quarters were farthest 
aft on the 343. The after bulkhead to their 
compartment was blown in, leaving the inside 
of the ship open to sea and sun. Fourteen men 
were in there at the time, lounging around or 
in their bunks. Many of them were bruised 
and all were shook up, but they all made the 
deck. They do not know how they made it, 
but they did. The after hatchway to the deck 
was closed with tumbling wreckage, so they 
must have gone up the midship hatch. 

One man taking a nap in the cot bunk far- 
thest aft had a part of the bulkhead blown past 
him. It cut off a corner of his cot and broke 
one of his legs, and blew him into the passage- 
way in passing. Landing in the passageway 



132 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

he sprained his other ankle. He is not quite 
sure how he made the deck without help, but 
he did make it, and he says he beat some of 
them to it at that. 

The man who was working on the after gun 
with the gunner's mate who was blown up, 
saw the shining torpedo leaping in the sun and 
heading straight for his part of the ship. If 
he did not do something he knew he was in 
for it, so he began to take long high leaps for- 
ward. The explosion came while he was in the 
air on his third long high jump. All he re- 
members happening to him after that was of an 
ocean of water flowing over him, and he not 
minding it at all. When he came to, the doc- 
tor was looking him over for broken bones, but 
did not find any. After the doctor left him he 
sat up and said: "I bet IVe been as near to a 
torpedo exploding and getting away with it as 
anybody in the world, hah?" And "Yes," 
said one of his shipmates, "and I bet you made 
a world's record for three long high jumps, 
without a run, too. You sure did travel, boy." 

When it was all over the two propeller shafts 
were still sticking out astern, one naked and 
shining in the sun; the other also shining and 



THE 343 STAYS UP 133 

naked, but with a propeller still in place on it. 
Spotting that, the skipper ordered the engines 
turned. To their delight the shaft revolved, 
the ship began to move. No record-breaking 
pace, but — God love the builder of a good little 
ship — she was making revolutions. The wreck- 
age hanging from her starboard quarter acted 
as a rudder, and so, instead of going straight 
ahead, she began to go round in circles. 

She continued to make circles, and her offi- 
cers and men stood to stations and waited for 
what next would happen. Destroyer people 
have it that there are grades of U-boat com- 
manders — some of nerve, some only ordinary. 
The U-boat man with nerve enough to attack 
a destroyer is a good one. He will bear watch- 
ing; so what they expected was to see this 
U-boat come up and finish the job. If she did 
come up and at the right place to get another 
torpedo in, then the 343 was in for a bad time. 
So they waited, some thinking one thing, and 
some another, but all agreeing that the odds 
were against them. 

The U-boat did show again. They saw her 
conning-tower slipping through the water at 
about 1,500 yards. The skipper of the 343 



i 3 4 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

was ready in so far as he could be ready with 
his poor little cripple. Crews were at gun 
stations, and that conning-tower had hardly 
got above the surface when two of the 343's 
guns cut loose at it. They got in four shots, 
the fourth one pretty handy. But no more. 
She submerged to the discouragement of one 
earnest gun-pointer. He leaned against the 
breech of his little 4-inch to say: "One more 
and I'd 'ave got her. Bet you me next month's 
pay that I get her if she shows for two shots 
again." 

She did not show again, but her not showing 
did not end the 343's troubles. They could 
steam in circles, but it was not getting them 
anywhere. A few miles away was one of the 
roughest shores in the world, the kind where 
green seas piled up against rocky cliffs — and a 
tide that was already setting them toward it. 
A bad enough place in any kind of weather, 
but with wind and sea making, and this time 
of year ! 

It was about two in the afternoon they were 
torpedoed. By dark they were being driven 
by the tide and white-capped seas to the 
shore. They had one hope left. Their radio 



THE 343 STAYS UP 135 

operator had managed to keep the radio gear 
in commission, and through all their troubles 
he had been sending out SOS calls, though not 
with too great hope that anybody would come 
in time. The U-boats had been pretty active 
thereabout, and it was not on any main sea 
route. There was always the chance, of course, 
that some war-ships would be somewhere near. 

For one hour, two hours, three, four, five, 
six hours they drifted. Their wireless kept 
going out of commission, and their radio oper- 
ator kept patching it up and getting it going 
again. S S — he never let up with that 
call. It was midnight when a British mine- 
sweeper bore down and hailed. By then they 
could hear the high seas breaking on the rocks 
abeam. The Britisher got the word across the 
wind, and tried to pass a messenger — a light 
line, that is — across to the 343. They did not 
make it. They tried again and again, but no 
use. The 343 was then within a few hundred 
yards of the breakers. 

The skipper of the Britisher then hailed that 
he would try to get a boat to them. They 
could hear him calling for volunteers to man 
the boat. He got the volunteers, and without 



136 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

being able to see every detail of it in the dark, 
the 343's people knew what was happening. 
They were making a lee of the trawler so as to 
get the boat over. But the boat was swashing 
in and out against the side of the ship — up on 
a sea and then bang ! in against the side of the 
ship. Merely as a sporting proposition, their 
own lives not depending on it, the 343's people 
would have been praying for that boat to get 
safely away. 

The boat managed at last to get away from 
the side of the mine-sweeper, and in time, 
pitching down on the rollers, they made out to 
heave a line aboard the 343. And on the deck 
of the 343 they were right there to grab it and 
bend it on to a hawser. Fine. Off went the 
mine-sweeper after she had taken her boat 
aboard, tugging heartily. She tugged too 
heartily for the length and size of the hawser. 
It parted. 

They did it all over again — the lowering the 
boat in the rough sea, the passing the line, the 
bending on of the bigger line, the attempt to 
tow. And again it parted. Wouldn't that test 
men's faith in their good luck ? The 343 
thought so. Once more tried it, and once more 



THE 343 STAYS UP 137 

it parted, but this time not parting until they 
were far enough off the beach to be safe till 
daylight. 

At daylight a British sloop-of-war came along 
with a real big hawser and gave them a real 
tow to our naval base. A group of us were 
steaming out with a fleet of merchantmen to 
sea as she was being towed in. Our fellows 
would have liked to turn out to give her a little 
cheer, also to inquire into the details of her 
mishap, but we had to keep on going, and wait 
until our return to port after a cruise to have a 
look at her. 

She was in dry dock when we got back to 
port, and the most smashed-up-looking object 
that any of us had ever seen come in from sea. 
The wonder was how she ever stayed up long 
enough to make port. That gaping after end 
open to sea and sky, and the bare propeller 
shaft sticking out from the insides of her — she 
sure did look like she needed nursing! They 
agreed that they were a lucky bunch to get her 
home. 

One poor fellow was killed — a wonder there 
were not more — and all hands were sorry for 
him; but tragedy and comedy so often bunk 



138 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

together, and men who adventure are more apt 
to dwell on the humorous than the tragic side 
of things. There was that about the code- 
books. The instructions to all ships are to 
get rid of the code-books if there is ever any 
likelihood of the enemy capturing the ship. 
The code-books are bound in thick lead covers. 
They are kept in a steel box, and altogether 
they weigh — I do not know, I never lifted them 
— but some say they weigh 150, some say 200 
pounds. After the 343 was torpedoed, an en- 
sign grabbed up the code-book chest, tossed it 
onto his shoulder, and waltzed out of the ward- 
room passage and onto deck with it. You 
would think it was a feather pillow he was 
dancing off with. When the danger of capture 
was over our young ensign hooked his fingers 
into the chest handles to waltz back with it. 
But nothing doing. It took two of them to 
carry it back, and they did not trip lightly 
down any passageway with it either, proving 
once again that there are times when a man is 
stronger than at other times. 

After the 343 made port the injured were 
handed over to the sick bay of the flag-ship. 
There were two of them who must have been 



THE 343 STAYS UP 139 

pretty handy to the storm centre of the ex- 
plosion. At least, it took two young surgeons 
on the flag-ship all of one day to pick the gun- 
cotton out of their backs. 

There was another man. The doctors, when 
they came to look him over, found the print of 
a perfect circle on the fleshiest part of his an- 
atomy. It was so deeply pressed in that the 
blue and yellow flesh bulged out all around 
from it. The doctors said it must have been 
made by a wash-basin being blown against him 
as he ran up the ladder to the deck. But the 
man himself knew better than that. "Excuse 
me, doctor," he said, "but it was nothing so 
light and soft as a wash-basin hit me. It was 
something more solid and bigger than that. It 
was the water-cooler, and I didn't run up any 
ladder — I was blown up." 

The destroyer people have great faith in the 
durability of their little ships. They are slim- 
built, and not much thicker in the plates than 
seven pages of the Sunday paper — they know 
that, but maybe that is their safety. There is 
no getting a fair wallop at them. They evade 
the issue. One man compared them to a hot- 
water bottle. Try to swat a loaded hot-water 



i 4 o THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

bottle. And what happens ? "When you poke 
it in one place don't it bulge out in another to 
make up for it ? Sure it does. And how do 
you account for that other one we were talking 
about ? A couple o' years ago — the one that 
had her stern cut off so that the men in the 
after compartment leaned out where the bulk- 
head had been, but wasn't then, and chinned 
themselves up to the deck from the outside ? 
And how do you account for her bouncing 
along at twenty knots or more in a gale of wind 
and a rough sea, and nothing happening them ? 
Get shook up — yes. But they come home, 
don't they ? They sure do. Maybe it's luck, 
but also maybe it's the way they're thrown to- 
gether — loose and limber-like." 

Whatever it is, they are dashing in and out 
over there on their job of convoying merchant 
ships and hunting U-boats. They expect to 
get their bumps, and they do; but so long as 
they get an even break they are not kicking. 
The chart-house gang on the 343 say that they 
are satisfied they get an even break all right. 
If she did not fill her little three-straight that 
time then nobody ever did get any cards in the 
draw. 



THE 343 STAYS UP 141 

They were sticking a new stern onto the 343 
when I left the naval base. When they get it 
well glued on she is going out again. Maybe 
that same U-boat — you can't always tell, some 
people have luck — maybe that same U-boat 
will come drifting her way again. And if they 
see her first — pass the word for the gun crews ! 



THE CARGO BOATS 

I HAVE spoken earlier of meeting cargo 
boats — tramp steamers, we call them at 
home — while crossing the Atlantic. In 
peace times a fellow would naturally expect to 
see them here, or almost anywhere else on the 
wide ocean; but to see them in these war days 
was to set a man wondering about them. 

Wondering, because more than 90 per cent 
of U-boat sinkings are of ships of less than 
12 knots' speed; which means that these rusty 
old junk heaps, wheezing along at maybe 9 or 
10, but more likely at 7 or 8 knots, furnish most 
of the sinkings. They surely must be having 
great old times getting by the U-boats, and 
their captains and crews must surely have a 
view-point of their own ! 

At this naval base of which I have been 
writing, you could look almost any day and see 
5, 10, or 20 of these cargo boats to moorings. 
And ashore was a pub — there were other pubs, 
plenty of them — but to this one particular pub 
142 



THE CARGO BOATS 143 

came bunches of these cargo captains to forget 
things. (Without wishing to offend any pro- 
hibition advocate, I have to report that knock- 
ing around the world a man cannot help no- 
ticing that men who face peril regularly do 
sometimes take a drink to ease off things.) 

A barmaid, answering to the name of Phyllis, 
presided over this pub, a blond, square-built, 
capable person, who had always about three 
or four of these captains standing on their 
heads. She was not without sentiment, but 
never letting sentiment interfere with business. 

"Phyllis, my dear," a skipper would begin, 
and get about that far when she — her right 
hand reaching for the bottle of Scotch and her 
left for the soda— would be saying: "The same, 
captain?"— thereby choking off a great rush 
of words, and forwarding the business for which 
she drew one pound ten a week. 

Before a creature of that kind these cargo 
captains were bound to preen themselves. 
They bought at frequent intervals, not at all 
like the ways of another group— not cargo cap- 
tains—of whom one of our American warrant 
officers said: "You buy and buy and buy, and 
they drink and drink and drink. It comes time 



144 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

for them to buy, and when it does they sub- 
merge, and don't come up for air." 

These cargo skippers were always coming up 
for air. They would hunt a man three stories 
up in his room, wake him out of his sleep, and 
haul him down-stairs to have just one more. 
Between drinks, after they got to know a man 
pretty well, they would talk of their sea experi- 
ences; and, after the fashion of all true adven- 
turers, their talk was almost always of the 
humorous side of things. 

There was a skipper there one morning who 
bid all hands, especially Phyllis, good-by. He 
was off to Alexandria. He would not be back 
for three months — more likely five or six months. 
Phyllis pinned a flower in his coat and off he 
went. From the pub window they saw him 
board his ship, and an hour later saw her steam 
out of the harbor and to sea. 

That was at ten in the morning. At five in 
the afternoon — the lights were just being turned 
on — those in the pub who happened to be look- 
ing out of the window thought they saw this 
captain's ghost coming up the waterside with 
his crew trailing behind him. The crew looked 
as if they had dressed in a hurry and were 



THE CARGO BOATS 145 

scampering along to keep warm. But our 
skipper was wearing all he wore when he left 
the pub. 

He drew nearer. It was no ghost. It was 
himself, even to the rose in his coat. He 
hailed Phyllis. She was talking to another 
skipper. The other skipper turned to see who 
was butting in, and seeing who it was, said: 
"To Egypt and back in seven hours — the 
quickest voyage ever I 'eard of!" Which com- 
ment so depressed the voyager that he refused 
to say anything about what had happened, ex- 
cept that five miles outside of the harbor he 
had been torpedoed, and they had to take to 
the boats in a hurry. 

The foregoing is by way of introducing the 
captain who commented on the quick voyage. 
A few mornings later I was up at the Admiralty 
House when he came into the waiting-room, 
let himself carefully down into a mahogany 
chair, dropped his new soft gray hat into his 
lap, and looked around. 

"A solemn place, ain't it ? Would thej' 'ang 
a chap, d'y' think, if he was to 'ave a bit of a 
smoke for 'imself while waitin' ?" 

I said that I thought the fashion nowadays 



146 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

was to take a man out and stand him up 
against the wall and shoot him. 

He was tall, heavily built, fresh-colored, 
with a way of seeming to reflect deeply before 
he replied to anything. By and by he said: 
"Oh, aye!" and lit his cigarette, but had not 
taken the second puff* when the doorkeeper's 
feet sounded outside, at which sound he pinched 
the cigarette hurriedly by the neck, and looked 
around for somewhere to dump it. There was 
no ash-tray, and the table being bare mahogany, 
the floor all polished wood, the fireplace with 
no fire in it, so brassy and shiny that to put 
anything there would be treason — he dropped 
the cigarette into his hat. 

The doorkeeper smelled something, but he 
wasn't one who looked on lowly things when he 
walked, and so did not see the little spiral of 
smoke curling up from the hat. 

My seafarer was in a great stew. To sit 
there and watch him was to warm up to 
him. There he was, a man who regularly faced 
death by more ways than one at sea, but now 
in deep fear that this shore-going flunky would 
catch him smoking a surreptitious cigarette. 
He stared determinedly at every place except 



THE CARGO BOATS 147 

at his hat until the doorkeeper had passed 
on. 

When he looked at his hat the cigarette had 
burned a hole in it. He viewed the hat sadly. 
"No gainsayin' it, war is 'ell, ain't it ? I paid 
fourteen bob for that 'at three days back in 
Cardiff." 

I went out to help him buy a new hat. Hat 
stores were scarce, but life does not end with 
hat stores; there were fleets of little places 
where a man could sit down and talk about 
more important things than hats. 

In the hotel smoke-room after lunch there 
was no sugar for our coffee. His sea-training 
began to show at once. "The thing you 'ave 
to learn to do at sea is to go on your own. 
Nobody doing much for a chap that 'e don't 
do for hisself, is there ?" From his coat pocket 
he drew an envelope which once held a letter 
from home — in place of the letter now was 
sugar. "Preparedness — 'ere it is" — and sweet- 
ened our coffee from the envelope. 

He spoke of his life at sea. "I can't say that 
I like it— I can't say I don't like it— but it was 
my life before the war and it 'as to be since. 
You've seen my ship, 'aven't you, lying to 



148 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

moorings ? Nothing great to look at, is she ? 
but the managing director of our company — 
he has the 'andling of maybe a 'undred more 
like her — 'Let 'em 'ave their grand passenger 
ships,' 'e says, 'but give me my cargo boats 
that pays for theirselves every two voyages.' 
The right idea 'e 'ad, I'll say for 'im. And for 
my part of it there is no everlastin' polishin' o* 
brahss and painting o' white work and no buy- 
ing o' gold-laced uniforms at your own cost. 
And there's the bonus for me. Oh, aye! A 
bit of bonus ain't a bit of 'arm, you know, 
especially when you've a wife that's no eyesore 
to look at, and little kiddies growin' up. 

"Torpedoed ? Oh, aye. It's not to be ex- 
pected of a man to escape that these days. My 
chum Bob, remember 'im — that was seven hours 
to Alexandria and back — with a rose in his 
coat ? His fourth time torpedoed, that was. 
I've been blowed up only three times myself. 
Nothing much of anything special, the last 
time and the time before that — a matter of 
getting into boats and by and by being picked 
up — no more than that — no. But the first 
time — maybe it was a novelty-like then. 'Ow- 
ever, I'd carried a load of coal to Naples and 



THE CARGO BOATS 149 

getting twenty-two pounds a ton for coal that 
cost two pound ten in Cardiff maybe makes it 
a bit clearer what the managing director 'ad in 
mind when 'e said : 'let 'em have their grand pas- 
senger ships, but give me my little cargo boats/ 

"From Naples I go on to Piraeus in Greece, 
and we take a load on there — admiralty stuff, 
and not to be spoken of — and we put out for 
'ome. She was a good old single-crew, this one 
o' mine. Twenty-five year old — not the worst, 
though I'd seen better. Well warmed up she 
could squeeze out eight knots, or maybe eight 
and a 'alf. I 'ung close to the land along that 
Greek shore, for if anything should 'appen 
ther's no sense 'aving too long a row to the 
beach in boats. 

"Very good. We're rollin' along one morn- 
ing when the radio man came in with a message 
which read: 'PUT INTO NEAREST PORT. 
U-BOATS.' 

"And without ado we puts into a little place 
down at the 'eel of Italy, and that night I 'ad 
a 'ot barth an' a lovely long sleep in my brahss 
bed which the missus 'ad given me for Christmas 
the last time 'ome. And a great pleasure it 
was, I say. 



i 5 o THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

"Next mornin' we put to sea again, and next 
day after comes another radio, and it says: 
'PUT INTO NEAREST PORT. U-BOATS/ 
And we put into Malta, and that night again 
I 'ad another 'ot barth and a fine sleep in my 
brahss bed. 

"We resume our voyage from Malta, and a 
two days later I gets another radio — more 
U-boats — and I puts into Algiers. Three times 
in one week that made with me 'aving me 'ot 
barth and a fine sleep in me brahss bed — grand 
good luck, I say now, and said it then to the 
mate, adding to it: 'There's a signal station 
west of Gibraltar — wouldn't it be delightful 
passing that signal station to get the word to 
put back to Gib and stop there for another 
night and I 'ave another 'ot barth and a lovely 
sleep in my four-poster bed.' But the mate 'e 
only says 'e didn't have no brahss bed aboard 
ship to sleep in, and he saved his 'ot barths, he 
did, 'til he got 'ome to enjoy 'em proper. 

"Summer-time it was, and I likes to take my 
little siesta after lunch — just like the Dons 
theirselves, y' know — and I'm 'aving me siesta 
next day after lunch when something woke me 
up. There's a shelf of books on the wall o' 



THE CARGO BOATS 151 

my room — chart-books and the like — and when 
all at once I see them pilin' down on top of me 
I say to myself: 'Something 'appened.' And 
so it 'ad. The mate 'e sticks 'is 'ead in the door 
and says: 'We're torpedoed, sir.' 

" 'There goes my bonus/ I says, and goes on 
deck. 

"We carried a 3-inch gun in a little 'ouse aft, 
and there was the mate firing at the U-boat, 
which was out of water and maybe two miles 
away. It was one of those out-of-date guns 
the navy would have no more to do with, and 
so they passes it on to us. New good guns 
would probably be wasted on us, and maybe 
that's true. None of us aboard ever fired a 
shot from the gory weapon till this day. The 
mate fired two shots at the U-boat, but 'e 
don't 'it anything. The U-boat fires two shots 
at us and she 'its something. One of 'em pahsses 
through the chart house, and the other tears 
a nice little 'ole in 'er for'ard. 

"That'll do for that gun practice,' I says. 

"'Aren't you goin' to 'ave a go at 'em ?' says 
the mate. 

"'You can 'ave all the go at 'em you please/ 
I says, 'after we leave the ship. Besides you 



1 52 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

there's 19 men and 4 Eurasians in this crew, 
and some of 'em will maybe like to see 'ome 
again — I know I do ! ' 

"We get into the boats, myself takin' along 
what was left of a second case of Scotch, and 
good old pre-war Scotch it was, not the gory 
infant's food they serve these days that a man 
'as to take a tumblerful of to know 'e's 'aving a 
drink at all. I also took along three sofy 
cushions, hand-worked by the missus, with 
pink doves and cupids and the like — rare lookin' 
they was. 'A man might's well be comforta- 
ble,' I says. 

"I 'ad a cook. 'If comfort's the word,' says 
the cook, 'I might's well take along the wife's 
canary,' and 'e takes it along in a cage in one 
'and, and a bag of clothes in the other. 'E's 
in the boat when 'e thinks to go back for a 
package of seed 'e'd left for the canary on the 
shelf in the galley. 'Hurry up with your bird- 
seed,' I says, and as I do a shell comes along 
and explodes inside of 'er old frame somewheres, 
and the cook says maybe 'e'll be gettin' along 
without the seed — the canary not being what 
you'd call a 'eavy eater, anyway. 

"The mate 'ad a cameraw, and when we're 



THE CARGO BOATS 153 

clear of the ship he would stand up and set the 
cameraw on the shoulders of a Eurasian fire- 
man, and take shots of the ship between shells. 

"In good time one last shell 'its 'er, and down 
she goes. The U-boat moves off, and we see 
no more of 'er. 

"It's a fine day and a lovely pink sunset, and 
there's a beautiful mild sirocco blowing off the 
African shore to make the 'ot night pleasant 
as we approach it in the boats. A man could 
'ardly arsk to be torpedoed under more pleasant 
conditions, I say, and we continue to row 
toward the shore in 'igh 'opes. It's maybe two 
in the mornin' when we see the side-lights of a 
ship. She's bound east — a steamer — and we 
know she's a Britisher, because we're the only 
chaps carried lights in war zones at that time. 
Carryin' lights at night o' course made us grand 
marks for the U-boats, but there was no 'elp 
for it. A board o' trade regulation, that was, 
and no gettin' away from what the board o' 
trade says. We had our choice of carryin' 
lights and losin' our ships, or not carryin' lights 
and losin' our jobs. So we lost our ships. After 
a year and a 'alf of war some bright chap in 
the board said that maybe it would be a good 



1 54 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

idea to change the regulation about carrying 
lights, and they did. And about time, we said. 

"Some of the crew were for 'ailing the ship 
in the night. "Ail 'ell!' I says. 'D'y' think 
I want to be took into that rotten 'ole of a 
Port Said, or maybe Alexandria, and that end 
of the Mediterranean fair lousy with U-boats. 
Besides, we'll get 'ome quicker this way/ I 
says, and allows her to pass on. In the morn- 
in' we run onto the beach, and 'ardly there 
when a crowd of Ayrabs come gallopin' down on 
'orseback to us. ' We'll be killed now,' says 
the mate, and talks under his breath of stub- 
born captains, who wouldn't 'ail a friendly 
ship's light in the dark, but the only killing the 
Ayrabs do is two young goats for breakfast. 
And they make coffee that was coffee, and we 
had a lovely meal on the sand. And by and 
by they steered us along the shore to where 
was a French destroyer, which takes us over to 
Gibraltar, and from Gib we passed on through 
Spain and France to Havre. Three weeks that 
took, and I never 'ad such a three weeks in all 
my life. 'Eroes, ragin' 'eroes — that's wot we 
were! 

"At Havre the French authorities took the 



THE CARGO BOATS 155 

mate's pictures out of the cameraw, and they 
never did give 'em back. Except for that, it 
was a fine pleasure, that land cruise 'ome. 

"Lucky? Oh, aye, you may well say it. 
Three times in one week I 'ad me 'ot barth and 
my lovely sleep in me brahss bed — it's not to 
be looked for with ordinary luck, you know." 

One day the destroyer to which I was as- 
signed put to sea. There were other destroy- 
ers, and we were to take a fleet of merchantmen 
from the naval base to such and such a latitude 
and longitude, and there turn them loose. My 
friend's ship was of the convoy. 

We made such and such a latitude and longi- 
tude, and there we turned them loose, signal- 
ling the position to them and waiting for ac- 
knowledgment. They acknowledged the signal. 
We then hoisted the three pennants which 
everywhere at sea means: Pleasant voyage! 
They answered with the three pennants which 
everywhere spells: Thank you. And no sooner 
done than away they belted, each for himself, 
and let the U-boats get the hindmost. 

The hindmost here was the rusty old cargo 
boat of my friend. I could see her for miles 



156 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

after the others were hull down; and long after 
I could see her I could picture him — walking his 
lonely bridge and his ship plugging away at her 
7 or maybe 7^ knots across the lonely ocean. 

Three times torpedoed and taking it all as 
part of his work ! Some day they may get him 
and he not come back; and when they do the 
world will hear little about him. Hero ? He 
a hero ? Why a shore-going flunky had him 
bluffed for smoking a surreptitious cigarette 
in high quarters ! 'Ero ? Not 'im. Why 'e 
don't even wear a uniform. 

So there they are, the wheezing old cargo 
boats and their officers and crew. British, 
French, Italian, American, but mostly British. 

No heroes, but the Lord help their people if 
they hadn't stayed on the job. 



FLOTILLA HUMOR-AT SEA 

WE were a group of American de- 
stroyers convoying twenty home- 
bound British steamers. There was 
one ship, a P. & 0. liner, a great specimen of 
camouflaging. 

She was the only ship in the convoy that 
was camouflaged, and she rode in stately style 
two lengths out in front of the others. All of 
which made her a prominent object. Our of- 
ficers felt like telling her to dress back; but 
she had a British commodore aboard, and for 
an American two or three striper to try to ad- 
vise a British commodore— well, it isn't done. 

All day long she rode out in front of the 
column, and all day long our fellows kept say- 
ing things about her. 

"Isn't she the chesty one!" 

"Look at the big squab with all that war- 
paint on— how does she expect any U-boat to 
overlook her?" 

"That big loafer, she'd better watch out or 
she'll be getting hers before the day's gone !" 

U-boats were thick around there. One of 
157 



1 58 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

them must have come up, looked the convoy 
over, and said, "Well, there's nothing to this 
but the big one!" and, Bing ! let her have it, 
for it was not yet quite dark when those who 
were looking at her saw a column like steam 
go into the air, a black column like coal fol- 
low it, and after that a column of water boil- 
ing white. 

One of our destroyers hopped to twenty- 
five knots, dumped over a 300-pound "ash- 
can," and got Mister U-boat. At least, the 
British admiralty later gave her 100 per cent 
on the circumstantial evidence. Two other 
destroyers — the 396 and the 384, we will call 
them — went at once to the job of taking off 
passengers from the sinking ship. 

That was at five minutes to six, just before 
dark. It had interrupted dinner on our ship; 
but by and by we went back to the ward-room 
to finish eating. It is always good business to 
eat — no knowing when a man will be needing 
a good meal to be standing by him inside. And 
we were still eating when the messenger came 
in with a radio. He passed it to the skipper, 
who read it to himself, whistled, and then read 
aloud: Torpedoed — Clan Lindsay. 

The Clan Lindsay was another of our con- 



FLOTILLA HUMOR— AT SEA 159 

voy, and she had been within 1,000 yards of 
our ship when we last came about to zigzag 
back across the front of our column. 

We looked at one another, and one said: 
"Well, you got to hand it to Fritz for being 
on the job every minute." 

And another: "Yes, but it looks like a big 
night to-night. Two in an hour ! And eighteen 
more ships and eight destroyers to pick from 
yet ! If he starts off like that, what d'y' s'pose 
he'll be batting by morning ? " 

The ward-room on our ship opens onto the 
ship's galley; and from the ship's galley an- 
other door opens onto the deck. Through the 
open galley-door just then came a muffled ex- 
plosion — a great Woof! 

We all thought just one thing — they've got 
us too ! — and we all sort of half curled up, and 
would not have been a bit surprised if the next 
instant we found ourselves sailing through the 
deck overhead. The feeling lasted for per- 
haps three seconds, and then our skipper, hap- 
pening to look up, saw that the colored mess- 
boy George was grinning widely. 

"What the devil you laughing at?" barked 
out our skipper. 

George took his eyes off the galley-door, but 



160 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

his grin remained. Said George: "Cap'n, I 
see de flame. The galley stove just done 
bust!" 

The galley stove on our ship was an oil- 
burner. It had back-fired, and so the loud 
Woof! 

Later it came out that the Clan Lindsay 
wasn't torpedoed at all; but one of our de- 
stroyers dropped a depth charge so close to 
her to get a U-boat that she thought she was. 

The camouflaged big liner sank, but not 
until the two of our destroyers standing by 
had taken off every one of the 503 passengers, 
one taking the people off the deck, the other 
picking up those in the small boats. One 
destroyer — the 396, say — took off* 307 of 
these passengers. Her skipper passed the word 
by radio to the 384, which had gathered in 
196 passengers, including the commodore. The 
384 got the message, only she got it 7 in- 
stead of 307 people rescued. 

"Seven survivors!" said the 384^ skipper. 
"I wonder why she radioed that?" He medi- 
tated over the puzzle and by and by solved it 
to his satisfaction. 



FLOTILLA HUMOR— AT SEA 161 

"Of course, what she wants is for us to take 
off the seven and add 'em to our own." He 
took measures to meet the emergency, and then 
followed this little incident: 

Aboard the 396 they were busy trying to 
find space for their 307 passengers when a look- 
out heard a Putt! putt! putt! coming over 
the water. The officer of the deck listened. 
Everybody on the bridge listened. Putt ! putt ! 
putt ! it came. The officer of the deck reported 
to the skipper. The skipper wondered who 
it could be, when just then a radio message 
arrived: "Am sending a boat — 384." 

"Sending a boat? What for?" He medi- 
tated over that puzzle and then he solved it 
— as he thought. "Sure. That British com- 
modore she picked up is coming to see how 
the survivors aboard here are getting on. 
That's it" — he turned to the watch-officer — 
"you know how these Britishers are for regu- 
lations. Even in the midst of a mess like this 
we'll have to kotow to his rank or he'll prob- 
ably be reporting us. So rouse out six side- 
boys, line 'em up, rig up the port ladder, have 
the bugler stand by for ta-ra-rums and all that 
stuff." 



162 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

They did that, shoving their crowded sur- 
vivors out of the way to make room for the 
ceremony. 

The Putt! putt! putt! comes nearer and 
nearer. Next, from out of the blackness of 
the ocean they make out a little motor-dory. 
Balanced out on the gunwale of the little dory, 
when it comes nearer, they see an American 
bluejacket smoking a cigarette. No one else 
was in the dory. 

The dory ran alongside. It was about a 
14-foot dory — no smaller one in the flotilla. 
The skipper of the 396 looked down at him. 
"What you want?" 

The bluejacket removed the cigarette from 
his lips. "I'm from the 384, sir." 

"Yes, yes, but what do you want?" 

"I've come, sir" — he waved his cigarette- 
stub airily — "to take off the survivors. The 
captain thought I might be able to make one 
load of 'em." 

When the big P. y 0. liner reported herself 
torpedoed that evening, a destroyer — not one 
of ours — picked up the message 100 miles or 
so away; and at once radioed: Coming to Your 



FLOTILLA HUMOR— AT SEA 163 

Assistance — Give Position, Course, and 
Speed. 

That was proper and well-intentioned, but 
as the 384 and the 396 were already standing 
by, a radio was sent back: Everything All 
Right — No Help Needed — Thank You. 

That did not seem to satisfy the inquirer. 
Would Like to Help — Give Position, 
Speed, and Course. 

Everybody being busy, nobody bothered 
to answer that. By and by came another radio : 
This is the Destroyer Blank — Give Posi- 
tion, Speed, and Course. 

He was so evidently one of those Johnnies 
who are always volunteering to do things not 
needful to be done that nobody paid any further 
attention to him. But he kept right on send- 
ing radios. By and by, for perhaps the seventh 
time, came: This is the Destroyer Blank — 
Please Give Position, Speed, and Course 
of Torpedoed Ship. 

At which some one — nobody seemed to 
know who, but possibly some undistinguished 
enlisted radio man whose ears were becoming 
wearied — sparked out into the night: Position 
of Torpedoed Ship ? Between Two De- 



i6 4 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

stroyers. Her Speed? About Four Feet 
an Hour. Her Course ? Toward the Bot- 
tom of the Atlantic. 

Nobody ever found who sent that message; 
nobody inquired too closely; but all hands 
thanked him. The flotilla heard no more from 
the bothersome destroyer. 

The business of hunting U-boats is a grim 
one. The officers and men engaged in it do 
not like to dwell on the hard side of it. They 
do like to repeat stories of the humorous side 
of it. 

One of our destroyer commanders over 
there has a personality that the others like 
to hang stories onto. He is a quick- thinking, 
quick-acting man named — well, say Lanahan. 
He was one day on the bridge of his ship when 
the lookout shouted: "Periscope !" 

"Charge her!" yelled out Lanahan. 

Away they went hooked-up for the peri- 
scope, which everybody could now see — about 
200 yards ahead. 

"He's a nervy one — see her stay up!" said 
the officer of the deck, who was standing beside 
the wheel, and had glasses on the periscope. 



FLOTILLA HUMOR— AT SEA 165 

And then, hurriedly: "I don't like the looks 
of her, captain — it looks like a phony periscope 
to me — as if there was a mine under it !" 

"To hell with her — ram her anyway!" 
snapped Lanahan. 

The deck officer had not once taken the 
glasses off the periscope. Suddenly he let drop 
his glasses, grabbed the wheel and pulled it 
hard toward him. 

Lanahan had stepped to the wing of the 
bridge and was leaning far out to get a glimpse 
of the U-boat. What he saw beneath him as 
his ship scraped by was not a U-boat, but a 
great white mine. He watched it slide safely 
past the bridge, past his quarter, past his stern. 
Then, turning around, he said gravely to his 
deck officer: 

"You're right — it was a mine." 

There was another young officer — Chisholm 
call him — who played poker occasionally. He 
commanded a flivver, which is the service name 
for the smaller class of destroyers, the 750-ton 
ones. 

In our navy there are plenty of young of- 
ficers who will tell you that they never built 



166 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

destroyers which keep the sea better than that 
same little flivver class. Young Captain Chis- 
holm of the 323 was one. 

One morning, having convoyed a fleet of 
merchant ships safely up the channel, the 323 
was one of a group of destroyers making the 
best of their way to their base port. Officers 
and men who have been hunting U-boats for 
a week or so do not like to linger along the 
road home; so it was every young captain 
giving his ship all the steam she could stand 
and let her belt. 

It was breaking white water all around when 
they started. It grew rougher. Chisholm in 
the 323 was going along at twenty knots when 
a poker-playing chum came along in his big 
1,000-ton destroyer. Her nose hauled up on 
the quarter of the 323; up to her beam; up 
to her bridge. As he passed the 323 — and he 
passed quite close to let all hands view the 
passing — the poker-playing friend leaned out 
and megaphoned across: 

"What you making, Chiz ?" 

"Twenty knots!" hailed back Chisholm. 

"I am seeing your twenty knots and raising 
you five!" returned the other, and passed on. 



FLOTILLA HUMOR— AT SEA 167 

"The boiler-riveted nerve of him!" gasped 
Chiz. "But let him wait!" 

The sea grew yet rougher. The 323 was 
bouncing pretty lively, but hanging onto her 
twenty knots. "And at twenty you let her hang 
if she rolls her crow's nest under !"said Chisholm 
to his watch-officer, "and I'll betcher we won't 
be acting rudder to this bunch going into port !" 

It was at ten in the morning that the big 
one had passed them. It was four in the after- 
noon, and the 323 was still going along at twenty 
knots when from out of the drizzle ahead her 
bridge made out the stern and funnels of a 
destroyer. It was Chiz's poker-playing chum, 
and his ship was making heavy weather of 
it. The able little 323 came up to her stern; 
breasted her waist, her bridge, and as he passed 
her (and he came quite close to let all hands 
view the passing), young Captain Chisholm 
leaned out from his bridge and roared through 
a long megaphone: "I call yuh I" 

He beat the big one fifty minutes into the 
naval base. 

There are two channels leading into the 
naval base port — call them West and East. 



168 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

This same Chisholm was one day headed for 
port in the usual hurry and was already well 
into the west channel when a signal was 
whipped out from the signal hill. It was for 
his ship and it read: "West Channel mined 
last night by U-boats. Proceed to sea and 
come in by East Channel." 

Chiz did not proceed to sea. All the harbor 
men who were watching saw him come straight 
on through the gap in the barrage, and safely 
on to his mooring. Also all the harbor knew 
that next morning he had to report to the ad- 
miralty and explain. 

The story of his explanation was not told 
by himself. But an officer friend, a great ad- 
mirer — call him Mac — had gone with him to 
the admiralty. Here the next day Mac told 
the story in the smoke-room of the King's 
Hotel: 

"Well, Chiz went and — you know his courtly 
style — he has his cape over his shoulders — 
and he salaams and says, 'Good morning, 
sir/ 

"The old man looks up and says like ice: 
'You got my signal yesterday afternoon?' 

"'I di^ sir.' 



FLOTILLA HUMOR— AT SEA 169 

" 'Then why did you not turn back and 
come in by the other channel?' 

u 'Sir,' says Chiz, 'may I be allowed a few 
words ?' 

" 'Very few. What have you to say V 

"'Sir/ says Chiz, 'I have been trained to 
believe that the one word a naval officer should 
not know is fear. In our navy, sir, we rever- 
ence the tradition of your own Admiral Nelson, 
who at the siege of Copenhagen put his glass 
to his blind eye and said: "I see no signal to 
withdraw!" and continued the fighting to a 
victory.' 

" 'Have you a blind eye, too?' 

" 'My sight is good, thanking you, sir, for 
inquiring, but in my own navy we also have 
the tradition of Admiral Farragut, who at 
Mobile Bay said: "Damn the torpedoes — go 
on !" and his fleet went on to victory. And 
there was Admiral Dewey, who said: "Damn 
the mines !" at Manilla, and went on to victory. 

"'What are you coming at?' roars the old 
man. 'Did you get my signal ?' 

" 'I did, sir. And my first instinct — the 
instinct of all our naval officers — is to obey all 
orders of our superiors, sir. But I was well 



i 7 o THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

into that channel when I got the signal, sir. 
And as I have said, sir, my first instinct was 
to obey orders. But also I stop and reflect, 
for I have also been trained to believe that 
hasty judgments work many evils, sir, and I 
consider and find myself saying to my deck 
officer: "This ship, Mac, is 300 feet long, and 
under her stern there are two big propellers. 
If ever we turn this 300-foot ship in this channel 
with those two propellers churning and there's 
any loose German mines around, there won't 
be a blamed one of 'em she'll miss. But if I 
keep her straight on, there's a chance. So hell's 
afire !" I says to Mac — "there's only one thing 
for us to do now and that is to keep straignt 
on!" And I kept straight on, sir — and, I beg 
leave to report it now, sir — we made our moor- 
ing safely. 

"And that's all there was to that," con- 
cluded Mac. 

There was a long silence in the smoke-room 
when Mac had done, and then a voice asked: 
"If Chiz had gone to sea and come in by the 
other channel — it was almost dark at the time 
— he would have been too late to make the 
barrage, wouldn't he?" 



FLOTILLA HUMOR— AT SEA 171 

"He sure would," said Mac. 
"Which would mean that he would be kept 
turning his wheels over outside the net all 

night r 

"He sure would." 

"As it was, he got in in plenty of time for 
that little game up-stairs last night?" 

"He was in a little game," admitted Mac. 

Another silence, and then another voice: 
"Well, poker or no poker, Chiz's dope on 
that damn-the-torpedo stuff isn't the worst in 
the world!" 



FLOTILLA HUMOR— ASHORE 

THE incident reported in the previous 
chapter was not young Chisholm's 
first interview with the British ad- 
miral. 

Mac went on to tell how when, after his 
first cruise, Chiz came to the naval base to 
report. He had heard that the old fellow in 
charge believed that the Lord made the earth 
for admirals, especially British admirals, but 
beyond that he knew nothing of his peculiarities. 

However, after his cruise, Chiz went whis- 
tling up the hill to report. By and by he was 
admitted to the presence of the admiral, who 
was seated at a flat desk in the middle of the 
room, gazing straight ahead. 

The old chap looked pretty frosty. Chiz 
waited a moment, then ventured a cheery 
"Good morning, sir." 

The face at the desk did not even turn to 
look at him, but the thin lips almost opened 
and a rasping voice said: "Got anything to 
say to me?" 

Chiz was one of the sociable souls, and he 
172 



FLOTILLA HUMOR— ASHORE 173 

would have liked to sit down and talk in an 
informal way of several little sea things that 
he thought were fairly interesting. But he 
had not been asked even to sit down, and the 
voice froze him. So, "Why, no sir, nothing 
special to report," was all he could find to say. 

"H-m. Nothing to say ? Then why waste 
my time or your own? Might as well get 
out, hadn't you?" 

Chiz got out. 

"An American lieutenant-commander in this 
place must rate about seven numbers below a 
yellow dog," said Chiz to Mac when he came 
out. 

Chiz had four days in port (Mac is still telling 
the story) after that cruise, and two days after 
his visit to the hill there was a cricket-match 
between a team from our flotilla and a team 
from theirs. The idea was for all hands to for- 
get rank for a while, get into the game, and 
so cement the entente between the two nations. 

Chiz was picked for one of our team, and 
you all know what a husky he is, and what he 
used to do with a baseball-bat. There aren't 
many who ever hit 'em any further or oftener 
than Chiz on the old Annapolis ball-field. He 



174 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

was one of the first of our fellows to go to bat. 
He's standing there — in the box, or whatever 
they call it, waiting for one to his liking; and 
looking around the field wondering where he 
will place it when he gets one to his liking. 
And as he looks he spies his friend the admiral, 
playing what we'd call left field. And just be- 
yond the admiral the ground sloped away for 
a hundred yards or so. 

Chiz hefts his bat — and you know those 
cricket-bats, what they look like and how they 
feel after you've been used to meeting fast 
ones with a narrow baseball-bat. They are 
wide and heavy and springy. Chiz doesn't 
pay any attention to three or four balls that 
come along, except to fend them away from the 
wicket with his wide cricket-bat. He knew 
what he wanted, and by and by he got one — 
one about knee-high with a little incurve to 
it. Chiz sets himself and swings and whale-0 
it goes, over the old admiral's head and down 
the slope beyond. 

Chiz makes all the runs the law allows — 
six, I think it is — and he's sitting resting on 
the wide part of his cricket-bat before the ad- 
miral even shows the top of his head over the 



FLOTILLA HUMOR— ASHORE 175 

hill with the ball. When he does and heaves 
it about half-way to the pitcher, or bowler, 
or whatever they call him, he's out of breath. 

Chiz sets himself for another one knee-high 
with an inshoot, and when he gets one he whales 
it again, and away trots the admiral on another 
hunt down the hill. And Chiz makes six more 
runs before they even see the top of the ad- 
miral's head over the brow of the hill. 

The third time, and the fourth time, Chiz 
sets for a knee-high one with an inshoot to 
it, and the third time and the fourth time he 
belts it over the old fellow's head and down the 
long slope. But on the fourth time the old fel- 
low doesn't throw the ball in. He walks in with 
it and he calls in the high official umpires, or 
whoever they are in charge, and they have a 
conference, and the next thing they call the 
game off. By this time, doubtless (so the 
word was passed), the American officers have 
caught the idea of the game, and next time 
there would be a real game and so on. 

But there was no next game. However, 
next day Chiz puts out to sea, and when he's 
into port again he calls up on the hill as per 
instructions. And by and by he is passed again 



i 7 6 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

into the presence, who is sitting just as before 
at the flat desk in the middle of the room, and 
gazing straight before him. 

This time Chiz doesn't speak, not even to 
say; "Good morning, sir." And the graven 
image at the desk doesn't speak either, and 
there's a silence for maybe a minute, and then 
the old fellow barks out: "What are you stand- 
ing there for? You wish to see me?" And 
Chiz barks out in his turn: "No, sir, I don't 
wish to see you." 

"You do not wish to see me? Then what 
are you doing here ? " 

And Chiz cracks out: "I'm here because 
your orders compel me to be here, sir." 

Zozvie! — that straightened the old boy up. 
He took a look at Chiz, and he says, after a 
while and almost pleasantly: "Have a chair." 

And Chiz has a chair, and they have a talk, 
and after that Chiz finds him a lot easier to 
get along with. Chiz says now that the old 
fellow isn't such a terrible chap — not after 
you get onto his curves. 

When we first came over (Mac is still speak- 
ing), most of the topsiders over here were strong 



FLOTILLA HUMOR— ASHORE 177 

for the entente stuff, and a good thing, too — 
why not ? 

Our fellows were mostly strong for it, too — 
two or three so strong that it was hard to tell 
whether they were Americans or something 
else — even their accents. 

And, as I say, most of the officers of our 
own over here were for it — most of them. But 
you can't rid everybody overnight of long- 
inherited notions. There was one chap we 
used to meet, and he sure was the most patron- 
izing thing ! 

Now, we know we haven't the biggest navy 
in the world, but as far as it goes we think it 
is pretty good. As good as anybody's, man for 
man, and ship for ship — but let that pass. 

This chap, who never could see anything in 
our navy, came in here one day. He wasn't 
bad. He was just one of those naturally foolish 
ones who thought he was a little brighter than 
his company. The topsiders would be work- 
ing night and day to create good feeling, and he 
was the kind would come along and break up 
the show — not exactly meaning to. 

This was in the hotel bar here, where a 
bunch of us were easing off after a hard cruise, 



i 7 8 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

when he comes along. He doesn't like the 
names of our destroyers. In his navy there 
was significance in the names they gave to a 
class of ships. 

"Take Viper, Adder, Moccasin, and so on — 
they suggest things y 9 know. Dangerous to 
meddle with and all that sort of thing, y' know. 
But your people name your ships after men 
evidently — David Jones, Conyngham, McDon- 
ough. I say, who are they — Presidents or 
senators or that sort, or what ?" 

Lanahan was there — the hell-with-her-ram- 
her-anyway Lanahan — and we all just nat- 
urally turned him over to Lanahan, who had 
west-of-Ireland forebears, and never did be- 
lieve in letting any Englishman put anything 
across — nothing like that anyway. 

"You never read much, I take it, of our 
history?" says Lanahan. 

"Your history ? My dear chap, I had hard 
work keeping up with my own." 

"No doubt. But you've heard of the Amer- 
ican Revolution?" 

"I dessay I have — Oh, yes, I have!" 

"Well, you spoke of Jones. If you mean 
John Paul, then there was a naval fight one 



FLOTILLA HUMOR— ASHORE 179 

time in the North Sea — the Serapis and the 
Bonhomme Richard." 

"I say, old chap, I didn't mention John 
Paul Jones. David Jones is the name of your 
destroyer out in the harbor now." 

"David Jones? Let me see. Why, sure, 
David Jones was a New England parson who 
boarded around among the God-fearing neigh- 
bors for his keep on week-days and preached 
the wrath of God and hell-fire for his cash wage 
— five pound a year — on Sundays. He was a 
devout man. If thy finger offend thee, cut it 
off. But a sort of muscular Christian, too. 
If thy enemy cross thee, go out and whale 
the livers and lights out of him — same as we're 
trying to do to the U-boats now. 

"Well, David lived in the shadow of the 
church till he was thirty-seven years of age. 
Then the Revolution broke, and David, in 
whose veins flowed the blood of old Covenant- 
ers, took a running long jump into it. He 
started in as deck-hand or, perhaps, it was 
cook's helper, but there was salt in his veins 
too, and rapidly he learned his trade. And 
soon rose in his new profession until he was 
master of his own ship, and, as master, raising 



180 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

the devil among the coasters which used to 
cruise out of Maritime Province ports in those 
days. The captures he made of vessels loaded 
with hay and potatoes, and so on, materially 
reduced the high cost of living for New Eng- 
land folks in those days. 

"Conyngham? He was a young American 
lad who did not come of any particularly good 
old stock, meaning that he did not come from 
Massachusetts or Virginia probably. He went 
to sea as a midshipman on an American sloop- 
of-war. And he turned out to be some little 
middy. Ensign, lieutenant, commander — man, 
he just ran up the ladder of naval rank. And 
got a ship of his own — a fine, young, able sloop- 
of-war, and with this sloop-of-war he would 
run out from the French channel ports and 
harry the English coast and English shipping. 
Never heard of him ? No ? Well, well ! — and 
he so famous in his day that King George put 
up a reward of 1,000 pounds for his capture 
dead or alive. But they never captured him. 

"And Barry? He was the Wexford boy 
who captured 200 English prizes more or less 
in the West Indies. Paul Jones trained under 
Barry before he had a ship of his own. 



FLOTILLA HUMOR— ASHORE 181 

And McDonough ? He — but am I boring 
you?" 

"No, no — it is very interesting." 

"I am glad. Well, McDonough was the 
commodore who fought the battle of Lake 
Champlain against your people. He opened 
that battle with prayers for the living and 
closed it with prayers for the dead. You want 
to watch out for those fellows who pray when 
they go to war. Their technic is sometimes 
pretty good. Their spirit is always good. 
While Mac was looking over the booty after 
that fight, a funny thing happened. He " 

"I say, old chap, it's all very interesting, 
exceedingly interesting, but what d'y' say to 
another little nip before I go? I've got to run 
along to see the chief now. What will you 
have to drink ?" 

"Sure. A nip of Irish, if you please. And 
here" — Lanahan held up his glass — "here's to 
the memory of dead heroes — may they always 
be preferred to crawling reptiles when it comes 
to naming our fighting ships !" 

After the other fellow had gone Lanahan 
turned to us. "Say, fellows, I know I got 
Paul Jones and Barry and McDonough right, 



182 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

but how near was I on Davey Jones and 
Conyngham ? Something tells me I got their 
histories mixed." 

This admiral, of whom our fellows used to 
spin the yarns, was a unique character. He 
lacked imagination, and he had the manner 
of a rat-terrier toward people not of his own 
kind; but he was one good executive. 

Devotion to duty — conscience — those were 
his beacon lights. He had been known, when 
the minister of the local church wasn't up to 
standard, to walk into the pulpit, and deliver 
the sermon himself. Before he came to take 
command of this coast district the U-boats 
had been raising Cain there. There was a 
fleet of steam-trawlers handled by their old 
fishing captains and crews, whose special duty 
it was to sweep up the waters just outside the 
harbor for mines. It was at that time a dan- 
gerous business, but it was also monotonous. 
It was a duty most easy to evade. 

Who was to say they had not swept up ? 
No cove at a naval base five hundred miles 
away, that was sure! Even if mines were 
found there after they reported it swept clear, 
what would that prove? The Huns were lay- 



FLOTILLA HUMOR— ASHORE 183 

ing mines all the time, weren't they ? So — 
war days are hard enough anyway — why not 
ease up now and again ? 

They eased up. Many a snug little place 
there was along the coast where a crew could 
go ashore and have a pleasant time for a day 
or two. There were reports to fill out, but 
what were reports ? Ship a clerk in the crew 
and who would know? Surely not some 
aide at the naval base who spent his busiest 
hours taking the admiral's niece to tea 
fights ! 

The British public will probably stand more 
from their lawfully ordained rulers than any 
other public on earth. They stood for a good 
many ships being mined on that coast before 
they began to ask the why of it. 

The powers returned with facts and figures, 
percentage tables, and so on, of ships depart- 
ing and ships arriving; proving clearly that the 
number of ships lost was no more than was to 
be expected. Whereupon the British public 
took to writing letters to the press. British 
politicians take letters to the press seriously; a 
new man, the admiral we have been talking of, 
was sent to take charge of the district. 

He got down to business. He fitted out a 



i8 4 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

30-knot despatch-boat and away he went! 
All along that coast he pounced in on little 
harbors where mine-sweepers should be found 
working outside, but where he found them 
working mostly inside at little sociable gather- 
ings where was a dance or the like going on 
in front and a little something nourishing to 
drink in back. Our stern and efficient admiral 
lit into them like a gull into a school of herring. 
Out by their gills he hauled them, and pretty 
soon the B. P. began to read less of percentages 
and more of results. 

One of the first results was that some 
trawler skippers lost their jobs, and new skip- 
pers took their places. This was at the time 
that rewards of five pounds or so were offered 
the skippers bringing a mine into port. 

That five pounds looked pretty good to one 
of the new skippers; and when one night at a 
pub a discharged skipper confided to him where 
there was a nest of German mines, out he goes 
into the gray dawn to be there first. He's there 
first, and sure enough it's a grand little spot 
for mines. He hooks into one, lashes it under 
his quarter and goes scooting back to harbor, 
which happens to be the naval base. 



FLOTILLA HUMOR— ASHORE 185 

Proudly and noisily he steamed along, 
shouting to everybody he met of his good luck, 
and asking the course to the admiral's ship. 
Everybody he met gave him the course and 
also the full width of the channel as he passed. 
He ran alongside the flag-ship, hailing loudly 
for the admiral as he steamed up. 

The admiral was not on board, but his aide 
was, and the aide came on to have a look over 
the side. He saw the mine bouncing up and 
down between the mine-sweeper's quarter and 
his own ship's side. Shove off— "get away 
from us !" yelled the aide. "Suppose you press 
one of those little feelers and blow us all to 
pieces — get away, I tell you I" 

The mine-sweeper skipper looked up — 
"Feelers, sir?" — and then looked down at 
the mine. "Feelers, sir? Oh-h, you mean 
them little 'orns stickin' out on 'er ? Bly-mee, 
sir, I thought I'd knocked 'em all hoff afore 
I lashed her alongside. But 'ave no fear, sir, 
there's only two of 'em left, and I'll bloomin' 
well soon" — he reaches for an oar and went 
bouncing aft — "bloomin' well soon knock them 
hoff, too, sir!" 



THE UNQUENCHABLE DESTROYER 
BOYS 

ONE day last summer a group of our de- 
stroyers were sent across the Atlantic. 
It was a night-and-day strain for all 
hands — watching out for raiders, watching out 
for U-boats, watching out for everything, and 
grabbing snatches of sleep when they could. 

Arriving at their naval base, every skipper 
of the little fleet felt pretty well used up. But 
every worth-while skipper thinks first of his 
men. One we have in mind passed the word 
to his crew that whoever cared to take a run 
ashore to stretch his legs and forget sea things 
for a while, why — to go to it. And stay till 
morning quarters if they wished. 

As fast as they could clean up and shift into 
shore clothes they were going over the side. 
Our young captain felt then that perhaps there 
was a little something coming to himself; so he 
turned in, and he was logging great things in 

the sleeping line when the anchor watch, who 

186 



THE DESTROYER BOYS 187 

was also a signal quartermaster, woke him up 
with: 

"Signal from the admiralty, sir." 

"Read it." 

The S. Q. M. read it — an order to proceed at 
once to an oil dock and take oil. 

It was nine o'clock at night when our skip- 
per had come to moorings. It was now one in 
the morning, and he knew he could have slept 
for another week; however, orders were to oil up. 

He turned out and mustered what remained 
aboard of his crew. There were about a dozen. 
He sent three to the fire-room, three to the 
engine-room, one here, another there, himself 
took the wheel, and with his signal quartermas- 
ter acting as a sort of officer of the deck, set 
out to find the oil dock. 

He had never seen that harbor before that 
night, but he sheered close in to every ship's 
anchor light he saw and hailed for the course 
to the oil dock. Most of them did not know, 
but one now and then passed him a word or 
two, and so he bumped along and by and by 
made the oil dock. 

Officers who have business with it will tell 
you that the naval organization of the British 



188 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

is pretty complete. Our young skipper found 
everything ready for him now. Men ashore 
made fast his lines, connected up his pipes, 
filled his tanks — all in good order. Sister de- 
stroyers were oiling up with him, and with 
tanks filled they all bumped their way back to 
moorings, again without sinking anything along 
the way. 

It was then daylight, and right after break- 
fast they all had to report to the admiralty, so 
no use trying to sleep any more. Arrived at 
the admiralty, the officer in command compli- 
mented them on their safe run across, and then 
went on to say that of course they had had a 
trying passage, and naturally their ships, espe- 
cially engines and boilers, would have to be 
overhauled — all very natural and proper — and 
of course the needful time for overhauling, and 
for officers and crew — two, three, four days, 
whatever it was — would be granted; but (they 
knew the need) the question was: How long be- 
fore they would be ready to go to sea ? 

The young destroyer commanders had dis- 
cussed that and other possibilities in the recep- 
tion-room outside, so when the senior of the 
group looked from one to the other of his col- 



THE DESTROYER BOYS 189 

leagues they had only to nod, for him to turn 
to the admiral and say: 

"We are ready now, sir." 

Which remark should become one of the his- 
toric remarks of this war. 

At this time — at the gates to the North Sea, 
the English Channel, the Irish coast — the U- 
boats were collecting frightful toll. In the 
Mediterranean they were running wild. Five 
ships from one convoy in one day — three of 
them big P. & O. liners — was one of their 
records in the Eastern Mediterranean. 

To the natural question, Why haven't you 
checked them ? almost any young British naval 
officer felt like saying: "Check 'em? Try it 
yourself and check 'em ! You go out there and 
keep your ship zigzagging full speed night and 
day for three years and see how you like it ! 
Go out there in rough weather and fog with 
not a minute's let-up, and see if you get to 
where the fall of a bucket of a dark night will 
make you jump three feet in the air or not ! 
Our ships were not built, and our chaps were 
not trained, to beat their rotten game." 

So things were when our fellows took hold, 
and hearing no word from them for a long time 



i 9 o THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

and then but a meagre one, it may be that 
many a citizen on this side was saying to him- 
self: 

"Well, they're gone, that little flotilla, swal- 
lowed up in the mists of the Atlantic, and that 
is all we know about them. And now I wonder 
what they're doing over there ? Are they doing 
great work or are they tied up to a dock at the 
naval base, and their officers and crews roister- 
ing ashore?" 

I can say from several weeks' observation 
later that they were not doing too much rois- 
tering ashore. Before leaving this side I found 
no evidence that anybody in Washington 
wished to suppress the record of what that lit- 
tle fleet was doing. Secretary Daniels and 
Chairman Creel of the Committee on Public 
Information believed with me that our little 
fellows over there were doing things worth re- 
cording. This fact is set down here because 
many people last summer believed there was 
too much suppression of the news of our fight- 
ing forces; and suspicion of suppression breeds 
distrust. Our fellows perhaps were not doing 
well. If they were doing well, wouldn't we be 
told more ? 



THE DESTROYER BOYS 191 

But they have ideas of their own on these 
matters over on the other side, and it is the 
other side which has most to say of what shall 
or shall not be given out for publication. In a 
previous chapter I have reported the answer of 
the British admiral in charge to my request to 
be allowed to cruise on an American destroyer. 
The reply was a flat and immediate: "No. 
They did not allow British writers on British 
ships; why should they allow an American 
writer on an American ship ?" 

It had to be explained that despite what they 
allowed or did not allow, English papers did 
publish praiseful items about the deeds of the 
British navy; and even if they did not publish 
such items, conditions governing publicity in 
the United States and the British Isles were 
not equal. The British navy was a tremen- 
dous one and it was operating just off their 
own shores; officers and men were regularly 
going ashore by the thousands and to their 
friends and families, if to nobody else, they 
talked of what was going on; and it does not 
take long for thousands of bluejackets to spread 
the gossip in a country where no spot in it is 
more than forty miles from tide-water, whereas 



192 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

our nearest Atlantic ports were three thousand 
miles from our base of operations in Europe, 
and it was another three thousand miles to our 
west coast. 

It also had to be pumped into the admiralty 
over there that possibly the American and 
British publics did not hold to quite the same 
ideas about their respective navies. It was 
possible that the 110,000,000 people of the 
United States looked on our navy as not alto- 
gether the property of the officers and men in 
it; possibly our 110,000,000 people over here 
looked on the navy as their navy, that they 
had a right to know something of what it was 
doing; and so (this item had to be pointed out 
to one of our own topside officers, too) as that 
same public were paying the bills of the navy, 
no harm perhaps to let them in on a few things 
or, this being the twentieth century, they might 
take it into their heads some day to have no 
navy at all. 

It took the foregoing talk and something 
more before I could get the permission of the 
British Admiralty to cruise on one of our own 
destroyers over there. This isn't so much a 
criticism of the British Admiralty as to show 



THE DESTROYER BOYS 193 

that their point of view differs from ours; and 
to show that it was not Washington which was 
holding up news of our navy over there. 

As to what they have been doing! They 
have been doing great work. I cruised over 
there on one of our destroyers. She was five 
years old, yet one day during an 85-mile run 
to answer an S O S call she exceeded her 
builder's trial by half a knot. Incidentally, she 
saved a merchantman which had been shelled 
for four hours by a U-boat and her $3,000,000 
cargo; also she ran the U-boat under— one of 
the new big U-boats with two 5.9 deck guns. 
On the same day two other destroyers of our 
group took from a sinking liner 503 passengers 
without the loss of a life. One of these de- 
stroyers lashed herself to the sinking ship the 
more quickly to get them off; and as the liner 
went down our little ship had to use her emer- 
gency steam to get away in time. A fourth 
destroyer of ours got the U-boat which sank 
the liner. That was the record of one little 
group of destroyers in one day; and it is de- 
tailed here because the writer happened to be 
present when these things happened. 

When our fellows first went over they had to 



i 9 4 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

learn a few things from the British. We had 
first to get rid of some childish ideas about 
depth charges. We brought over a toy size of 
50 to 60 pounds. They showed us a man's 
size one — 300 pounds of T N T, a contraption 
looking so much like a galvanized iron ash- 
barrel with flattened sides that they call them 
" ash-cans." 

s These ash-cans do not have actually to hit 
the U-boat; to explode one anywhere near is 
enough. When our fellows let go one of them, 
the ship has to be going 25 knots to be safe. 
One of our destroyers was making 1 1 knots one 
night — the best she could do under the weather 
conditions — and an ash-can was washed over- 
board by a heavy sea. Our destroyer's stern 
came so near to being blown off that her crew 
thought sure she was gone; she had to feel the 
rest of the way most carefully to port. 

This U-boat hunting has been found so 
wearing on men's nerves that the British Ad- 
miralty has a law that our destroyers must re- 
main in port after every cruise for periods that 
average about two-thirds of their time at sea. 
Once our destroyers are back to port and tied 
up to moorings, a U-boat might come up and 



THE DESTROYER BOYS 195 

sink a ship at the harbor entrance and our fel- 
lows not allowed to up-steam and at 'em. It 
was only after a hard experience against U- 
boats that they evolved this law to save men 
from breaking down. 

It is a dangerous, hard service on one of the 
roughest coasts in the world — a coast where 
for seven months or so in the year wind and 
sea and strong cross tides seem to be their 
daily diet; a service where for days on a stretch 
it is nothing at all for destroyer crews not to be 
able to take a meal sitting down, not even in 
chairs lashed to stanchions and one arm free 
hooked around a stanchion; a service where 
officers live jammed up in the eyes of the ship 
and never think at sea of taking off their clothes, 
and where they sleep (when they do sleep) 
mostly by snatches on chart-house or ward- 
room transoms. 

And for watches: eight hours in every twenty- 
four, night and day watching of their convoy, 
of their colleagues, of periscopes. (The pros- 
pect of collision with their close-packed con- 
voy and themselves is a bad chance in itself.) 
On a destroyer convoying ships the officer of 
the deck has to stand with one eye to the com- 



196 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

pass ordering, say, two hundred changes of 
course in every hour. And one watch-officer 
of every destroyer has the extra job of acting 
as chief engineer of the ship; and when a watch- 
officer had to go aboard a torpedoed ship, or to 
go in the crow's nest in a critical time, to spend 
hours, it may be, the time so spent is in addi- 
tion to his regular eight hours. 

If he is the executive officer he must also 
act as navigator; and as it is important to 
know just where the ship is any moment of 
the day or night, the navigator does not figure 
on sleep in any long stretches. About twenty 
waking hours out of twenty-four is his portion. 
As for the skipper: Every single waking hour 
of his is a heavy strain. I went to sea with 
the commander of the alert, intense type. 
Most of them are of that type, but this one 
particularly so, with eyes, ears, nerves, and 
brain working always at full power. Three 
hours in twenty-four was a pretty good lay-off 
for him. 

Lively? Our destroyers are about n^ 
times as long as they are wide; which does not 
mean that they cannot keep the sea. They 
can keep the sea. Put one of them stern-on to 



THE DESTROYER BOYS 197 

a 90-mile breeze and all the sea to go with it, 
give her 5 or 6 knots an hour head of steam, 
and she will stay there till the ocean is blown 
dry. But they are engined out of all propor- 
tion to their tonnage, with their great weight 
of machinery deep down; which means that 
they roll. Oh, but they do roll! Whoopo— 
down and back like that ! Most any of them 
will make a complete roll inside of six seconds. 
Ours was a 5 ^-second one. When she got to 
rolling right, she would snap a careless sailor 
overboard as quickly as you could snap a bug 
off the end of a whalebone cane. There is one 
over there which rolled 73 degrees— and came 
back. 

Take one of them when she is hiking along 
at 20 knots, rolling from 45 to 50 degrees, 
and just about filling the whaleboat swinging 
to the skid deck davits as she rolls ! See one 
dive and take a sea over her fo'c's'le head and 
smash in her chart-house bulkhead maybe! 
Their outer skin is only Ke of an inch thick. 
See that thin skin give to the sea like a lace 
fan to a breeze! Watch the deck crawl till 
sometimes the deck-plates buckle up into V- 
shaped ridges ! See them with the seas slosh- 



198 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

ing up their low freeboard and over their narrow 
decks, so that men have to make use of a sort 
of trolley line to get about. A man is aft and 
has to go forward, say. He hooks onto a rope 
loop, the same hanging from a fore-and-aft taut 
steel line about seven feet above deck, and when 
her stern rises he lifts his feet and shoots and 
fetches up Bam ! — up against the fo'c's'le break. 
He is forward and wants to go aft — he hooks 
onto the loop, waits for her bow to rise, lets 
himself go and there he is — back to her skid 
deck. 

That sounds like rough work. Sometimes 
it gets rougher than that, and then you hear 
of the wireless operator who was held in his 
radio shack for forty hours. He got pretty 
hungry, but he preferred the hunger to coming 
out and being washed overboard. 

But let a machinist's mate tell you in his 
own way of the night he was standing a fire- 
room watch — this with all due respect to the 
chart-house bulkhead, the trolley line, the 
buckling decks, and the radio operator who 
was confined — this night he was on watch in 
the fire-room. Was it rough ? He thought so. 
When he looked down at his feet, there were 



THE DESTROYER BOYS 199 

the fire-room deck-plates folding in and out 
like a concertina. 

Destroyer crews do not loaf overmuch 
around deck. They can't. They live below 
decks mostly, strapped in when it is rough to a 
stretch of canvas laced to four pieces of iron 
pipe, set on an angle down against the ship's 
sides, and called a bunk. Even strapped in so 
they are sometimes, when she has a good streak 
on, hove out into the passageways. It was a 
young doctor of the flotilla who said that, ex- 
cept for their broken arms and legs, his ship's 
crew were disgustingly healthy. 

Our officers over there volunteer for this ser- 
vice, and for every one who went, there were a 
dozen who wanted to go. And there is a lot 
of difference between men who go to a duty 
because they are ordered to go, and men who 
go because they want to go. These officers 
and men— there is no beating them, except by 
blowing them off the face of the waters. And 
even then they are not always beaten. One of 
our destroyers was cut down one night by col- 
lision. (With so many ships being crowded 
into a small steaming area, collisions are sure 
to happen.) All hands had to take to the 



2oo THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

rafts in a hurry. It was about two in the 
morning, one of those summer nights in the 
North when the light comes early. They 
watched her going under. Her deck settled 
level with the sea, and as it did so a young 
irrepressible one sang out: "What do you say, 
fellows, to having a race around the old girl 
before she flops under ?" Away they started, 
four or five gangs of them, paddling their life 
rafts with their hands around the sinking ship 
at two in the morning. 

That is youth; and there is no beating youth. 
We have had stories of our soldiers singing a 
song that has become very popular since we 
entered the war. We have been told of them 
singing it under the most varying conditions: 
as they camped on the granite blocks of the 
Hoboken water-front; as they climbed over the 
gangways of ships bound across; debarking 
from ships in European ports; singing it from 
behind the drawn shades of coaches rolling 
across France. There were even those who 
sang it while waiting to step into the life-boats 
on a torpedoed troop-ship; but for light-hearted 
courage has any one beaten that destroyer lad 
who was torpedoed one night last winter ? 



THE DESTROYER BOYS 201 

When the torpedo struck his ship the two 
depth charges astern were exploded also. Two 
300-pound charges of T N T they were. The 
little ship seemed to be lifted out of the water. 
There was just time to throw over a few life 
rafts and take a high dive after the rafts. 
There was no time to get an S S message 
away before the ship went down; so there they 
were — a November night in northern waters, 
more than half their crew known to be dead, 
their ship sunk, no other ship near and no hope 
of one coming near. It was about as tough a 
case as men could be expected to face and hope 
to live. But there was a boy there — he was 
jouncing up and down in the water to keep 
warm, and jouncing up and down he was sing- 
ing (from out of the dark they heard him), 
singing cheerfully: 

"O boy, O boy, where do we go from herd!" 

It is the thing spoken of in the early part of 
this book. Material is a great thing; but per- 
sonnel has it beaten a dozen ways. Paul Jones 
with his capable seagoers in his little sloop-of- 
war could raise the devil with the enemy. 
Paul Jones with a line of battleships and forty 



202 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

crews of men without spirit would not have 
caused them ten minutes' loss of sleep. That 
singing lad in northern waters was worth a 
dozen guns. 

Our destroyers went over there at a time 
when the U-boats were sinking more tonnage 
in one month than Great Britain was building 
in four; and because of U-boat activities the 
loss of ships in the usual marine ways was far 
beyond normal. To the weary British our fel- 
lows brought a fresh vigor, a new aggressive- 
ness. 

Only half a dozen were in that first group, 
but other groups followed, and groups are still 
following. They have not driven the U-boats 
from under the seas, but they have made it 
possible for merchant ships to live in that part 
of the ocean they are covering. 

Somebody has broken into print somewhere 
to say that Germany has trouble getting U- 
boat crews; that men have to be driven into 
U-boats to man them. What a queer idea of 
human courage people who say such things 
have! There are always volunteers, probably 
always will be — plenty of volunteers for any 
dangerous serivce. If the U-boat crews were 



THE DESTROYER BOYS 203 

the kind that have to be driven to sea, there 
would be no great harm in them. But they 
are not that kind. They have courage, and 
they have skill, and because they have courage 
and skill they are dangerous. 

After a year of the U-boat drive England 
saw a danger of being some day starved out; 
and with England starved out, our army might 
as well have stayed on this side last summer; 
but though the drive is still on, England is not 
yet starved out, for much of which comfort 
they can thank the officers and men of our lit- 
tle destroyer flotilla. 

At a time when England was worn and 
weary with the U-boat game, our fellows went 
over to hearten them up; and they are still 
heartening them up; and, besides heartening 
them up, they are getting the U-boats regu- 
larly. How many they are getting I could not 
say, even if I knew; but one of our vice-admirals 
has publicly stated that they once got five in 
one day. And with malice toward none, let us 
hope for more days like it. 



THE MARINES HAVE LANDED- 



IT was a little girl at home, not old enough 
to read long words, but able to read a pic- 
ture, as she put it; and there was a print 
of a company of marines leaving one of our 
navy-yards, and she said: "The marine soldiers 
going away — more trouble somewheres, isn't 
there, papa?" 

Which caused her papa to recall that from 
where he was born and lived the first years of 
his life he had only to look out of his top win- 
dow and across the harbor to see a big navy- 
yard; and while he was still too young to read 
a paper, he had seen marines boarding ships 
and marching off to trains; and just as sure as 
he did the older people would read from that 
night's or next morning's paper of trouble some- 
where abroad. 

And always they went without any fuss. 
Most of us would have more to say about 
going to the office of a snowy morning than do 
the marines on leaving for some far-away 
country, from where, as they know by past 
204 



MARINES HAVE LANDED 205 

records of the corps, quite a few of them are 
never coming back. They were the original 
efficiency boys. They slung their rifles, hooked 
on their packs and went; and that ended that 
part of it. 

But after they were gone people living near 
naval quarters waited for the next word; and 
that next word so often came in the form of 
one laconic sentence, the same cabled back 
by the topside naval officer or some American 
consul, that we used to wonder if they had a 
rubber stamp for it — that laconic, reassuring 
sentence ! When our country erects a memo- 
rial structure to the United States Marine 
Corps, she should chisel over the main front: 



The Marines Have Landed and Have the 
Situation Well in Hand 



Landed in some tropic port with some hard- 
pronouncing name, they have, shoving off 
from the ship's side with their rifles and their 
packs, to get a toe-hold somewhere against two, 
five, ten times their number blazing away at 
them from behind sand-hills, or roof-tops, or a 
fine growth of jungle, it may be. 



206 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

The others are not always as well equipped 
as our fellows and they may have no advance 
supply-base; but they know how to campaign. 
South of us are multitudes who will take a bag 
of corn, a water-bottle, and a pair of straw 
sandals and go shuffling over the hill trails for 
forty or fifty miles a day. And don't think 
they won't fight. They will. In countries 
where boys of twelve and thirteen pack a gun 
and go off with their fathers in the army, they 
probably do not worry overmuch about dying 
early. 

From their retreats they like to sally forth 
at intervals and have a wallop at our fellows. 
There was a corporal in Haiti, on outpost, with 
half a dozen loyal natives acting as policemen 
with him. The native guards slept in barracks 
by themselves; our marine in a little low shack 
set up on posts a hundred yards away, with a 
native who acted as cook and general helper. 
The next outpost was six miles away. 

A band of outlaws rushed the native police 
in their barracks at this post one night, and 
such as they did not shoot up they ran into 
the brush. Our corporal was awakened from 
sound slumber by the firing and shouting at 



MARINES HAVE LANDED 207 

the barracks. A few volleys through the sides 
of his own shack waked him up good. He 
pulled on his trousers, taking time to fasten 
them only by one button at his waist. There 
was no time for socks; he pulled on his shoes, 
but had no time to lace them. A marine is 
trained to be neat in his attire, and so our 
corporal apologetically explained later that he 
had got no farther than that in his dressing M 

when he heard them trying to burst in his front 
door. 

The corporal sent his native cook to the rear 
door, while he fixed his bayonet to his rifle and 
stood guard over the front door. They had it 
all but stove in when he began cutting loose 
like three men with his rifle through the door. 
He killed a man there. 

They then began to smash in the window 
nearest the door. He pried open the window 
with his bayonet, and got there before them. 
There was a big black fellow at the broken 
window. Our marine shot him dead, which 
gave him time to turn to the side window, 
which they had now broken in with the butts 
of their rifles. He got one there. There was 
another close up whom he hit but did not kill; 



208 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

and he dropped another one on the edge of the 
shadows outside. The cook, catching the 
spirit of the thing, killed one at the rear door 
on his own account. 

The bandits had enough, and left. Next 
evening, when his officer Came along with a 
squad, he found our corporal with his wounded 
underguard, his four dead ones in a neat row, 
and himself and his cook frying chicken in the 
twilight, cheerfully able to report that he had 
the situation well in hand. 

They are a sharpshooting rifle outfit. Down 
in Vera Cruz during the late trouble a platoon 
of marines were at the foot of a street leading 
up from the water-front. They had cleaned up 
things all about them and thought they were 
in for a rest; and they wanted their rest — a 
hot tropic day with the heat rolling ofF the 
asphalt where they lay. 

There came a ping ! of a rifle bullet among 
them; and half a minute or so later another 
ping! They watched, and up the street they 
saw the head, arm, and shoulder of a man with 
a rifle come poking around the corner of a 
building, and ping ! another one, and this time 
one of their men hit. A bad hombre, that one. 



MARINES HAVE LANDED 209 

4 'Get him!" said their officer, and named two 
of them to get him. 

The two men lay down on the asphalt; and 
when their friend next poked his head and 
shoulders around the corner, they fired. They 
saw the adobe plaster spatter from a corner of 
the building just under the man's chin; but 
that wasn't getting him. They jacked their 
sights up 50 yards, making it 800 yards; and 
when next the native showed around the corner 
they both got him — one plumb between the 
eyes. 

It was good shooting; but there was no 
special comment after it. The talk would have 
come if they hadn't got him. 

But it is not always a matter of fighting or 
shooting efficiency. There was that bad hom- 
bre, Juan Calcano of Santo Domingo — Juan 
the Terrible, the natives called him. Juan and 
his gang had a headquarters in the mountains. 
From there they came riding down into the 
valleys — shooting, robbing, standing quiet na- 
tives on their heads generally. Juan had quite 
a little territory under tribute. He came down 
into La Ramona, where was a custom-house 
and guard. He shot up the guards, took all 



2io THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

the gold in the custom-house, and rode away, 
saying: "Come after me who dares!" 

The marines did not worry about the daring 
part; but he was too strongly intrenched for a 
direct attack. Your professional soldier, above 
all men, prefers not to throw away good men's 
lives. They considered matters; and one day 
they set out, three marine officers and thirty 
men, for Juan's country. One of those tropical 
hurricanes came along the same day they 
started, blew down trees, filled rivers to over 
their banks, and made them wade waist-deep 
in the mud of the roads. It was tough going, 
but it had its good side — there were not many 
people abroad. 

They arrived near the village where Juan 
was known to be. An American marine would 
not have stood much chance to get back if Juan 
had known one was around; but one of the 
officers rigged up as a mule trader and went 
looking for Juan. He found him, taking it 
easy until the roads after the storm should be- 
come passable, and allow himself and his men 
to sashay into the valley again. 

All kinds of people — white, and black, and 
brown — came Juan's way to do business — to 



MARINES HAVE LANDED 211 

buy mules and horses, for instance. In the 
course of his travels in the valley Juan had 
helped himself to some very fine mules and 
horses. Along comes this man this day — 
American, English, French, Spanish, who 
knows ? Or cares ? He talked money — cash 
— for a good pair of mules. No old spavined 
creatures, but young, strong, sound ones. 

Yes, Juan had just such a pair of mules. 
Oh, a superb young pair ! He would see. 
Truly yes. Would the stranger senor come 
into his house so that Juan might speak more 
confidentially of them ? The stranger would. 
And did. But before Juan could unload all he 
had to say about his mules the mule buyer 
drew a large service automatic and slipped 
Juan out to where thirty-two marines, officers 
and men, were in hiding. And they put Juan 
in jail, and all it cost was one mule — not Juan's 
— drowned while crossing a stream during the 
hurricane. 

The marines have a great fighting record; 
but the marines do more than fight. After all, 
men cannot be handling rifle and bayonet every 
waking minute — they would become abnormal 
creatures if they did, of use only in war time; 



212 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

and it would be a terrible world if war were 
our end and aim. The marines get aviation, 
search-light, wireless, telegraphic, heliograph, 
and other signal drill. They plant mines, put 
up telegraph and telephone lines in the field, 
tear down or build up bridges, sling from a ship 
and set up or land guns as big as 5-inch for 
their advance base work. 

It is a belief with marines that the corps can 
do anything. Right in New York City is a 
marine printing plant with a battery of lino- 
types and a row of presses. They set their 
own type, write their own stuff (even to the 
poetry), draw their own sketches, do their 
own photography, their own color work — 
everything. Every man in that plant is a 
marine, enlisted or commissioned. Every one 
has seen service somewhere outside his country. 

One was in a tropic country one time after 
an all-night march to a river where the ferry 
was a water-soaked bamboo raft. They had 
to wait until some native might happen along 
with a bull — or it might be a cow — to tow the 
raft across. After crossing the river twice in 
that day, the young marine commander halted 
on the bank and said: " That's sure not cross- 



MARINES HAVE LANDED 213 

ing in a hurry if we had to. Might's well go to 
it and build a bridge right now." 

They cut down trees, got a portable pile- 
driver from their transport, rigged it up and 
set to work. They hoisted the hammer — a 
good heavy one — and let it drop. Bam ! she 
struck, and into the mud for about two feet 
went the pile. Fine ! They hoisted the ham- 
mer again — four men hauling on pulley blocks 
did the hoisting — and let her go again. This 
time instead of a fine bam ! the hammer went 
a fine splasho ! into the river. The great heat 
and dampness of the place had warped the 
runways; almost every other time they let 
that hammer drop, it jumped the runways and 
into the river. 

But that was all right. They could fish her 
out and hoist her up by man power again. It 
was when they left the solid bank and had to 
put out into the river that their troubles began. 
A pile-driver ought to have a pretty solid foun- 
dation. Ought to have ! They took two dug- 
out canoes, lashed them together, put a bam- 
boo deck across, set their pile-driver on the 
deck and turned to again. It made a kind of 
a wabbly base; besides hauling the hammer 



214 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

out every time it jumped into the river, they 
had to see that it didn't come bouncing down 
atop of their own heads or through the canoe 
deck. However, they were getting action. 
They finished driving the piles and setting up 
the stringers. 

For their bridge floor they laid down wood 
shingles, and over that a mat made out of 
woven bamboo strips. For a top deck ? Well, 
it was a coral island and the roads of that 
country were of pounded coral; they put a top 
dressing of pounded coral across the bridge. 

And then the young marine commander 
looked her over and figured on the dimensions 
of his struts and stringers, and said: "Some 
class ! She'll stand a two-ton load." And then 
along came a steam-roller from off the trans- 
port, and the roller weighed five tons and it 
was important that it be passed across. "Go 
ahead," said the marine commander — "only I 
hope you can swim!" And they all camped 
on the bank to watch. The steam-roller man 
was an optimist and a literary person: "You 
may have builded better than you know, cap- 
tain!" The bridge settled down another foot, 
but the roller got across, and back and over 



MARINES HAVE LANDED 215 

many more times; which set the younger ma- 
rines to standing on the bank and saying: 
"That's us — bridge builders!" 

The fight in the shack, the capture of Cal- 
cano, the sharpshooting at Vera Cruz, the 
building of that coral-floored bridge, are not 
set down here as wonderful stunts. They are 
set down because the writer happened to bump 
into them during a casual hour's inspection of 
their records. Scores of more heroic or in- 
genious samples could be served up by any- 
body who cared to dig deep into the records. 
These are detailed here, because they could be 
briefly told and at the same time show the ma- 
rine's characteristic qualities: courage, ingenu- 
ity, technic, and industry. 

Here we might mention that it is not in itself 
an act of war to land marines on foreign soil. 
It was sending ashore the bluejackets at Vera 
Cruz that made it an act of war. To protect 
American lives and property in Nicaragua a 
battalion of marines landed there a few years 
ago. They had some sharp fighting, but it 
was not an act of war. Do you begin to see 
him as a diplomatic asset ? And perhaps why 
all this landing action comes his way ? Most 



216 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

of us have probably forgotten the details of 
that Nicaraguan landing; but — unless they 
have been jacked out lately — a company of 
those marines are still there, looking out for 
American interests. Only a company, but still 
hanging on. 

Courage, ingenuity, industry — they need 
them all. Most of us will probably have to 
stop to remember that the marines who landed 
in Haiti and Santo Domingo are still there. 
And running things in their usual efficient fash- 
ion. There was the usual fighting to get a toe- 
hold, the usual fighting to retain place, the 
usual establishing of outposts, with the usual 
killed and wounded already probably forgotten 
by most of us. Perhaps they are too far away 
to make absorbing newspaper items; perhaps it 
is the Big War overshadowing all else. 

In Haiti and Santo Domingo it was the old 
story of political factions, each faction having 
its own little gang of fighting men till our fel- 
lows came in and ran most of them into the 
hills. When the marines took charge they 
found that pretty much everything on the 
island had gone to wrack. As, for instance, 
under the old French regime there had been 



MARINES HAVE LANDED 217 

some splendid roads in Haiti, but now they 
were hardly more than sewers in the towns and 
a drainage for the hill slopes of the country. 

The marines repaired the roads; not always 
using the picks and shovels themselves, but 
seeing to it that somebody did, paying a living 
wage for such work to the natives. Sometimes 
bandits — who are quite often gentle creatures 
when out of training — captured bandits were 
allowed to quit jail to do useful work in this 
line. The marines installed sanitary methods, 
saw that courts of justice were resumed, marine 
officers themselves serving as justices until 
they found natives who could do that service. 
Likewise they collected and disbursed taxes. 

Above all, they did away with the old reign 
of terror, when no man's life was safe if he 
happened to be on the wrong side. When the 
bandits were running around unchecked, it 
was not safe for a whole family to go to mar- 
ket together. Generally the women went to 
sell their little produce, while the men stayed 
behind to guard the little property at home. 
Now — the natives speak of the wonder of it — 
the roads on market-days are crowded with 
both men and women. 



218 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

At first they had distrust of the marine; not 
altogether because he was a foreigner (the 
tropical people probably are less distrustful of 
us than we of them) — he was an armed soldier. 
But they learned to know him, and now the 
native salutes and smiles without effort at the 
marine in passing. When one particular ma- 
rine officer left there to come home recently, 
crowds of native men, women, and children 
came down, some to weep, but all to wish him 
Godspeed in going. 

The marine is sometimes termed soldier and 
sailor too, which is not correct. He is not a 
sailor and does not claim to be. When not 
in barracks ashore he lives aboard some war- 
ship afloat; and on shipboard he does certain 
guard work and handles the secondary bat- 
teries. But he does not have to sailorize; 
the bluejacket takes care of that part, and 
takes care of it well. The notion that a 
marine must qualify as a sailor aboard ship 
has probably cost the corps many a prospec- 
tive recruit. 

To call him a seagoing soldier is more nearly 
correct. When it is not an act of war to land 
marines on foreign soil, it is good business to 



MARINES HAVE LANDED 219 

keep them where landings can be quickly made 
with them. So his being kept aboard ship, per- 
haps. Bluejackets have taken part in landing- 
parties, too, but it is not to black the bluejack- 
et's eye to say that it is not his regular job. 
The bluejacket's work is aboard ship— on the 
bridge, in magazines, in turrets, below decks. 
Advance shore work is the marine's specialty, 
and he goes to it pretty much as a man with a 
dinner-pail goes to work in the subway. 

He is the first to land, the last to leave, and 
to name the places where he has seen service- 
well, one of them wrote a song once. 

"From the hills of Montezuma to the shores 
of Tripoli," it began. But he has seen more 
than Mexico or the Mediterranean since. He 
could now say: 

"From the hills of Montezuma to the gates of old 

Pekinc 
He has heard the shrapnel bursting, he has heard 

the Mauser's ping ! 
He has known Alaskan waters and the coral roads 

of Guam, 
He has bowed to templed idols and to sultans 

made salaam. 

He has " 



220 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

But it's like calling a roll — Egypt, Algeria, 
Tripoli, Abyssinia, Mexico, China, Japan, Ko- 
rea, Cuba, Porto Rico, Panama, Nicaragua, 
Haiti, Santo Domingo, Alaska, the Philippines, 
Formosa, Sumatra, Hawaii, Samoa, Guam — 
like calling the roll of tropic countries and a 
few less warm to say where he has been. 

He has been most everywhere, done most 
everything. Did you ever see any mounted 
marines ? There is a guard of mounted ma- 
rines right now with the legation in Peking; 
and once a platoon of marines, on duty in 
Africa, not being able to get big enough horses, 
rode camels through the wilds of Abyssinia to 
the palace of old Menelik. 

In speaking here of the marines, no man or 
officer has been named. That is done of a 
purpose. In talking of the corps, from the 
topsiders down — generals, colonels, majors, cap- 
tains, lieutenants, and enlisted men — one fact 
stuck out: They all played up the corps. All 
individuals — officers and men — were made sub- 
ordinate to the corps. So here, taking the tip, 
no names are named. A soldier speaks of his 
regiment, a bluejacket of his ship. The Marine 
Corps is made up of companies, regiments, bat- 



MARINES HAVE LANDED 221 

talions, divisions; but it is the corps of which 
the marine always speaks. 

If you ask the members of any other outfit 
to name the model military unit, they may 
name their own branch of the service first; but 
if they do, it is almost a sure bet that they will 
name the United States Marine Corps next. 
When they do not name themselves first, they 
name the marines first. And this does not 
apply to outfits in this country alone. 

By the look of things now, there probably 
will be plenty of war before we are done. If 
any young fellow is wishful to be in the middle 
of it, we would say: Consider the marines. 
You may not see them mentioned every morn- 
ing in the press reports, but be sure of this— 
they are there and on the job. 



THE NAVY AS A CAREER 

A YOUNG fellow reading all this stuff 
about the doings of our destroyers 
might be inclined to look on the navy 
as pure adventure, which would not be to get 
it quite right. The adventure is there, but 
there is something more. 

The navy will take a young man, feed and 
clothe him, give him a good all-round training, 
and while he is yet in middle age retire him 
with at least #60 a month for the rest of his 
life. No matter how low his rating has been, 
that $60 a month is certain after his thirty 
years of service; while, if he has shown mod- 
erate intelligence and ambition, he can count 
on close to #100 a month, and this without 
his having ever been a commissioned officer. 
The years after his retirement he may spend as 
he pleases — go into business, get another job, 
and make another wage on top of his pension. 
He can go to jail if he prefers: whatever he 
does, always there is that sheet-anchor of a 

pension to windward. 

222 



THE NAVY AS A CAREER 223 

Apart from the fighting end of it, most of us 
possibly do not know just what navy life means 
to-day. We all know that man-of-war's men no 
longer lie out on rolling yardarms to reef salt- 
crusted sails in gales of wind; but in what else 
lies the difference ? Some of us, possibly, do 
not know that. 

The navy still wants men with the seagoing 
instinct — men who can sailorize, who can hand, 
splice, and steer; but more than ever the navy 
is looking for men who can do other things. 
The navy wants ship-fitters, blacksmiths, 
plumbers, electricians, wireless operators, car- 
penters, boiler-makers, painters, printers, store- 
keepers, bakers, cooks, stewards, drug clerks; 
even as it wants gunners, boatmen, quarter- 
masters, sailmakers, firemen, oilers, and it will 
take clarinet, trombone, and cornet players 
and the like for the ship's band. 

If a man has no trade the navy will teach 
him one. There are navy schools for elec- 
tricians, shipwrights, ship-fitters, carpenters, 
painters, coppersmiths, ship's cooks, bakers, 
stewards, and musicians. There are schools 
where yeomen (ship's clerks) are taught all 
about departmental papers; there is a Hospital 



224 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

Corps school; an aeronautic school; a school 
for deep-sea diving. (There are no schools for 
blacksmiths or boiler-makers; these must have 
mastered their trades before enlistment.) 

When a young fellow enlists he is sent to 
one of several naval training-stations. Here 
they are quartered in barracks — well-aired, 
well-lighted, well-heated buildings. At one 
place, where the climate is mild, the boys sleep 
in barracks in bungalows with upper sides of 
canvas, which are rolled down to let in sun 
and air in fine weather and laced up against 
bad weather. 

At all training-stations there are mess-halls, 
reading-rooms, libraries; also gymnasiums, ath- 
letic fields, and ball parks. At all stations 
there are setting-up drills, gymnastic, swim- 
ming and signal exercises, ship and boat train- 
ing. The men go on hikes, fight sham battles, 
dig trenches. Line-officers give them advice 
which will be of use to them on shipboard later; 
service doctors and chaplains hand them hy- 
gienic and moral truths that will be of use to 
them anywhere at any time. 

A recruit goes from the training-school to a 
cruising ship, where he may find himself — ac- 



THE NAVY AS A CAREER 225 

cording to his work — doing watch duty four 
hours on to eight hours off; or working at hours 
like a man ashore — turning to at eight or nine 
o'clock and knocking off at four or five or six 
o'clock in the afternoon. 

War-ships formerly meant close living quar- 
ters; and ships formerly went off on cruises on 
which the men sometimes did not set foot on 
shore for six months or a year, and quite often 
they had to go for months without taste of 
fresh meat or vegetables. Those days are 
gone. Ships still make long cruises from home, 
but they do not keep the sea as they used to. 
Service regulations require that men now be 
given a run ashore once in three months; and 
"beef boats' ' travel with all fleets. 
' The everlasting holystoning of wooden decks 
and the dim lanterns hung at intervals from 
low-hanging beams — they are gone. The only 
dim lanterns now are the "battle-lanterns" in 
use at night war practice; and they are swung 
to steel bulkheads by electric wires. Quarter- 
decks, forecastle heads, and bridges are still 
planked on the big ships, and such do still have 
to be holystoned on special days; but the great 
stretches between decks are now laid in lino- 



226 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

leum on the hard steel itself; electric lights are 
all over the ship, and, as for the low beams, 
the new big ships are so high-girdered that 
hammock-hooks on the berth-deck have to be 
made extra long so the men won't have to get 
stepladders to turn in. A battleship nowadays 
is about 600 feet long, 100 feet wide, has 
seven or eight decks, with turrets, bridges, mili- 
tary masts, and smoke-pipes topside. Between 
decks are magazines, storerooms, engine-rooms, 
boiler-rooms, dynamo-rooms, mess-rooms, ice- 
rooms, repair-shops, staterooms, office-rooms, 
sick-bays, galleys, laundries, pantries — but 
only ship-constructors can tell you offhand how 
many hundreds of compartments are below 
decks of a present-day big war-ship. 

She is a great workshop, an office-structure, 
a big power-plant, a floating hotel — and a few 
other things. But above all she is meant to 
be a home for ten or twelve hundred officers 
and men. 

A man may not be given duty on a battle- 
ship or battle cruiser; he may be sent to a 
scout cruiser or a beef boat or a gunboat, which, 
being smaller, will bounce and roll around more 
in heavy weather and not offer so much room 



THE NAVY AS A CAREER 227 

to move around in; but he will get used to the 
bouncing around, and always he will find some 
variety and some comfort in his daily life. 
- That item of comfort might as well be 
counted in as important. It is something to 
know that, no matter what else happens, there 
are hot meals waiting a man three times a day, 
and a dry change of clothing, and a dry ham- 
mock to turn into nights. Even on deck duty 
in bad weather a man can get into slicker, rub- 
ber boots, and rain-hat, and at the worst be 
almost comfortable. 

Navy life is not meant to be a perpetual en- 
tertainment — not though they do hold regular 
smokers on the quarter-decks of the big ships. 
To lie for months off a tropic port waiting for 
something to happen — that is not exhilarating; 
and coaling ship, even with the band playing — 
that is no joy. But the watching of tropic 
ports passes; and the ship has to steam many 
a mile before she must be coaled again. So, 
taking it in the long perspective, it is a mod- 
erately varied life, an outdoor life, and under 
hygienic conditions of the best. Right now, 
war with us, there is going to be some dan- 
ger; but we are assuming that any man who 



228 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

thinks of joining the navy is prepared for a 
little danger. 

A man may enlist in the navy up to thirty- 
five years of age, provided he is at least 5 feet 
4 inches tall, weighs 128 pounds, has a 33-inch 
chest, possesses normal vision, a moderate 
number of sound teeth, is free from disease or 
deformity, and is an American citizen. Some- 
times men shy on some measurement are passed 
if above average otherwise. A boy seventeen 
(the youngest enlistment age) must be 5 feet 
2 inches and weigh no pounds. When a boy 
or a man enlists he goes at once on the pay- 
roll. With his pay goes a clothing allowance 
sufficient to cover all service demands; with 
his pay also goes nourishing and abundant 
food. 

Enlistments are of four years for men. A 
boy's enlistment runs to his majority. A man 
may work up to be a C. P. 0. (chief petty offi- 
cer) in his first enlistment. The navy is full of 
men who have done that. During this war 
many a recruit should make his C. P. O. quickly, 
for there is nothing in the Regulations to pre- 
vent a recruit from making his C. P. O. over- 
night. The habit of most officers is to rate 



THE NAVY AS A CAREER 229 

up good men in their divisions as fast as va- 
cancies will permit. 

A C. P. O.'s base pay may run up to $yy a 
month. With re-enlistment that base pay is 
increased. A man re-enlisting without delay 
gets a bounty of four months' pay. (Figure 
that extra re-enlistment money — four months' 
pay every four years, the same with interest at 
the navy savings-account rate of 4 per cent — 
and see what it amounts to after thirty years' 
service.) That extra re-enlistment money is not 
figured into the pension probabilities, as stated 
in the beginning of this article. Consider that 
and then consider how many men have to work 
until they are too old to work any further and 
who, after all their years of labor, go on the 
scrap-heap without a dollar against the poverty 
of their old age. 

Besides the base pay of a man's rating there 
is extra money for men doing special work. 
(Neither has this been reckoned in the pension 
possibilities.) Certain gun-pointers, gun-cap- 
tains, coxswains, stewards, and cooks get extra 
money up to #10 a month. Men in submarines 
get #1 extra for every day their boat submerges 
up to #15 a month. Men acting as mail-clerks 



2 3 o THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

draw up to #30 a month extra; ship's tailors up 
to #20 a month extra. Men in the Flying Corps 
get 50 per cent more than the base pay their 
rating calls for. Every man in the service 
draws a small extra sum for good conduct. 

A chief petty officer is not the highest rating 
of the enlisted service. There is a most effi- 
cient body of men called warrant-officers, who 
wear a sword, are called "Mr.," and draw up 
to $2,400 a year. There are warrant boat- 
swains, gunners, machinists, carpenters, phar- 
macists, and pay-clerks. But they must re- 
main in service, even as most commissioned 
officers, till they are sixty-four, before they 
draw their pension of three-quarters pay. Also, 
like commissioned officers, they get no cloth- 
ing allowance and have to pay for their food. 

The matter of becoming a commissioned offi- 
cer may interest the recruit. One hundred ap- 
pointments may be made to Annapolis every 
year from among the younger enlisted men of 
the navy. Young fellows who wish to try for 
this are given special opportunities for study. 
The proviso that an applicant must be under 
twenty years of age and have been at least one 
year in service to make Annapolis is going to 



THE NAVY AS A CAREER 231 

bar the way to some. For such there is another 
way — warrant. A warrant boatswain, gunner, 
or machinist of four years' standing and still 
under thirty-five years of age may take an 
examination for ensign. Twelve warrant-offi- 
cers may be made ensigns annually. If they 
pass, they thereafter go on up exactly as any 
Annapolis graduate. A warrant pay-clerk may 
go up to be junior paymaster, where he will 
rank with an ensign. 

The foregoing is for the business or ambi- 
tious side. Somebody may ask: Will the young 
fellow who looks on the navy as a business 
proposition make a good fighting man ? 

Well, in the judgment of men who study the 
game, almost any young fellow you meet along 
the street has it in him to make a good fighting 
man. The fighting habit is more a habit of 
mind than of body. Habituating the mind to 
the fighting game is what makes our sailors, 
soldiers, and marines do the right thing almost 
automatically in crises; and this almost auto- 
matically correct action makes for the greater 
safety of shipmates or comrades in time of 
peril. 

In this book only the work of our destroyers 



232 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

in this war has been spoken of. That is be- 
cause only our destroyers have come in contact 
with enemy ships; but all along the line the per- 
sonnel is of equal caliber. 

Our navy is crowded with men who will face 
any danger. Some years ago one of our bat- 
tleships was on the battle-range, with bags of 
powder stowed in her turrets to save time in 
loading and firing the guns. A spark got to 
the bags of powder. There was an explosion 
and a fire. Directly underneath was the hand- 
ling-room. Burning pieces of cloth fell from 
the turret down into the handling-room. The 
crew of that handling-room could have jumped 
into the passageway, made their way up a 
ladder, and so on to the free and safe air of 
the open deck. What they did was to stand 
by to stamp out what fire they could. 

Leading from the handling-room were the 
magazines. The doors of the magazines were 
open. Men jumped into the magazines and 
buttoned the keys of the bulkhead doors so 
that there would be no crevice for sparks. In 
doing that they locked themselves in; and once 
in they had to stay in. Above them, they 
knew, was a turret full of men and officers dead 



THE NAVY AS A CAREER 233 

and dying; they knew that fire was raging 
around them, too, and that the next thing 
would be for the people outside to flood the 
magazines. The magazines were flooded ; when 
things were under control and the doors opened, 
the water in the magazines was up to the men's 

necks. 

While that was going on below decks, in the 
turret were other men and officers, including 
the chaplain, not knowing what was going on 
below, and expecting every moment to be 
blown up into the sky; but there they were, 
easing the last moments of the men who were 
not already dead. Thirty all told were killed 
in the turret. All concerned behaved well, but 
no better than they were expected to behave. 

A few years ago there was a destroyer off* 
Hatteras. It was before daybreak of a win- 
ter's morning in heavy weather. A boiler ex- 
plosion blew out her side from well below the 
water-line clear up through to her main deck. 
Men were killed by the explosion; others were 
badly scalded. A steam burn is an agonizing 
thing, yet some of these scalded men went back 
into that hell of a boiler-room and hauled out 
shipmates who, to their notion, were more 



234 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

badly burned than themselves. One such res- 
cuer died of his burns. The hole in the deck 
and top side of that destroyer was twelve feet 
across, yet her commander and crew got her to 
Norfolk under her own steam. Commander 
and crew behaved well, but no better than they 
were expected to behave. 

There is a chief boatswain in the navy who 
had the duty of taking a ship's steamer with a 
crew to look after the ship's target at battle 
practice. A target is a frame of canvas set up 
on a raft of logs. The duty of the steamer was 
to stand off to one side and make a record of 
the hits. 

This boatswain likes to joke, to try out new 
men. On the run from the ship he called the 
roll and said: "Now, boys, in this work one of 
you will have to stay on the raft to count the 
hits. Of course it is dangerous work. I won't 
say that it isn't. The man going may not come 
back. The chances are" — he eyed them one 
after another — "that whoever goes will never 
come off the raft alive. Now, I can name the 
one who will have to do that work. But I 
don't want to have to name him. I'll let you 
draw lots." 



THE NAVY AS A CAREER 235 

He took a sheet of paper and cut it into 
strips. His crew — all apprentice boys, all fresh 
from the training-school — drew the slips. The 
lad who drew the short slip was no better or 
braver to look at than most of the others. He 
looked at his slip of paper and then in a sort 
of wonder at the sea and sky. 

He came back to his short slip. His lips 
trembled. He prayed to himself. Then he 
went down into his blouse pocket and fished 
out a stub of a pencil. He was whiter than 
ever, and shaking. "Can I have a sheet of 
paper, sir?" 

"What do you want a sheet of paper for?" 

"I'd like, sir, to write a note to my mother 
before I go." 

To pick out a few isolated instances from 
service records and shout: "There is the proof 
of general efficiency, of courage, of — " what- 
not — that would be idle. These were not taken 
from the service records. Officers and men in 
the turret explosion, in the destroyer accident, in 
the raft incident, are mentioned here because the 
writer, at different times, has cruised with them. 

They all behaved well; but no better than 
they were expected to. 



236 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

When I asked the boatswain in the raft case 
if he expected the boy to quit, he said: "Quit ! 
They never quit." 

This talk of heroism and pensions in the 
same breath may not seem to jibe; somebody is 
going to wonder if the man who thinks of the 
money side of the navy in the beginning isn't 
going to think too much of it in the end. But 
there is a point of view which should be reck- 
oned with, and a type of man, of a good fight- 
ing man, who should be listened to in this 
matter. Why should not a man who risks 
his life in his daily calling have the normal 
comforts and his family the ordinary necessities 
of life ? 

I know a fireman, an efficient, brave man — a 
man with a record. One night — we were in a 
drug store in a crowded city — he was answering 
the argument of a man working in a big factory. 

Said the fireman: "You're making your five 
or six — yes, and eight — dollars a day, in lively 
times like now. All right. But the lively times 
will pass, and there'll come weeks when you 
won't make any four or five or six dollars a day, 
and there'll come weeks when you'll be on half- 
time. Average it up and you won't get any 



THE NAVY AS A CAREER 237 

more than I will in the long run. And when 
I'm through, when I'm fifty-five, I get a pen- 
sion, and with a few good years left to me. 
And where are you then ? Out on the street 
or some home for the aged — if they will take 
you. 

"Save money as I go along? I don't figure 
on it — not with a family and trying to give 
them the kind of food they need and the little 
things that live boys and girls — especially girls 
— care as much for as the grub they eat and 
the clothes they wear. But if I do spend all 
my pay, my family are getting the good of it, 
I don't go into the discard at the end. And 
when I'm up on a shaky roof in a bad fire, 
maybe I'll be more ready to take a chance, 
knowing that if I go through and cripple my- 
self, there's something coming to the wife and 
family after it." 

The fireman's argument holds for the navy, 
except that in the navy they get through 
younger and with a bigger pension. 

Is there any romance in the navy nowadays ? 
Who can answer for all ? Probably as much 
now as ever there was. Why should substitut- 
ing smoke-pipes for spars, and propellers for 



238 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

sails, kill the thing that thrills us ? I've seen 
men washing down decks of a tropic morning, 
and, ninety miles inland, old Orizaba showing 
his white head above the clouds; and some of 
those men thought it was slow work and others 
thought it was great. 

On a scout cruiser to African ports, or a 
thousand miles up a Chinese river on a gun- 
boat, among the South Sea Islands on a light 
cruiser, some men return with dumb lips and 
others can keep you awake till morning with 
the tales of what they've seen. 

A nineteen-year-old big-gun pointer sits atop 
of his bicycle saddle, and the enemy fleet is 
swinging into range. Will it be like shooting 
clay pipes in a gallery or will a warmer wave 
go rolling through his veins as he presses the 
button ? 

Romance ! Is it something always dead and 
gone, or something a man carries around with 
him ? 

Whatever it is, the navy is there to try it 
out, and no danger of starving while we try it. 



l^ 



THE SEA BABIES 

SUBMARINES have been cutting a large 
figure in this war. There is probably a 
general curiosity to know how they are 
operated. I know I was curious to know, and, 
Collier s having secured me permission from the 
Electric Boat Company, I went over to Cape 
Cod to take in a trial trip or two of some 
boats they were building for the British Gov- 
ernment. 

There was one all ready for sea. 
Long and narrow, and modelled like a 
stretched-out egg she was, with one end of the 
egg running to a point by way of a stern, and 
the other flattened to an up-and-down wedge- 
like bow. A heavy black line marked her run. 
Below her run she was tinted to the pale 
green of inshore waters, and to a grayish blue 
above. Everything above her deck, which was 
only a raised fore-and-aft platform for the crew 
to walk on, with countless little round scupper- 
holes in its sides— above the deck her conning- 
239 



2 4 o THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

tower, and above that again her periscope cas- 
ing — all were blue-gray. 

The feeling of the morning was of heavy- 
wind and rain or snow to come; and a hard, 
cold breath of the sea and a taste of the rain 
were already on us as we crossed the plank 
from the mother ship to the deck of the "sub" 
and, one after the other, fitted ourselves into 
the main hatchway and wiggled down into her. 

Our submarine, from the inside, was an 
amazing collection of engines, tanks, gauges, 
tubes, pipes, valves, wheels, torpedoes, tube 
heads, electric registers, electric lights, and 
what-not. A flat steel floor ran from the for- 
ward end to the engine-room aft. Between the 
floor and the arched deck overhead were three 
heavy steel bulkheads with heavy steel doors. 
A narrow iron skeleton ladder led up to her 
conning-tower; small steel rungs bolted to the 
casing showed the way to a square after-deck 
hatch. 

When all the others of us were below, the 
captain came squeezing down from the conning- 
tower hatch and took his position at the peri- 
scope. 

To the captain's left stood a man whose job 



THE SEA BABIES 241 

it was to hold the sub to the depth of water de- 
sired. This was the diving-rudder man, a most 
expert one, we were told, who had been known 
to hold a submerged sub at full speed to within 
six inches of one depth for two miles at a 
stretch. A thin brass scale and a curved tube 
of colored water with an air bubble in it helped 
out the diving-rudder man's calculations. The 
least deviation of the sub's course from the 
horizontal and these two instruments, lit up 
by electric lamps, showed it at once. There 
was a big dial, with a long green hand, which 
also marked the depth of the sub; but that was 
an insensitive and rather slow-acting gauge — 
all right for the crew to look at from half the 
length of the sub, but not fine or quick enough 
for the diving-rudder man. 

He was the busy man while we were under 
water. The others could now and again grab 
a moment of relaxation from their tenseness, 
but while the sub was moving the diving-rud- 
der man never took his eyes off the little brass 
scale with the electric light playing on it. Stop 
and consider that our sub had only to get a 
downward inclination of ever so little while 
running hooked-up under water, and in no 



242 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

time she would be below her lowest safety 
depth of 200 feet, where the pressure is 7 tons 
to every square foot of her hull. And should 
she collapse there would be no preliminary 
small leak by way of warning. She would go 
as an egg-shell goes when you crush it in your 
palm. Plack ! — like that — and it would be all 
over. Above this same middle compartment, 
the smallest and most crowded of all, up through 
the grilled spaces of a steel grating, we could 
see the wide feet and boot-legs of the man who 
held the ship to her compass course; and for a 
wheel, we knew, he was holding a little metal 
lever about as long and thick as his middle 
finger, with a little black ball about as big as 
the ball of his thumb on the end of it. 

To the right of the foot of the conning- 
tower ladder stood the ballast-tank man; and 
when the captain from the foot of his periscope 
gave the word — after first looking forward, aft, 
and to each side of him to see that all hands 
were at their proper stations — it was the bal- 
last-tank man who went violently at once into 
action. He grabbed a big valve and gave it a 
twist; grabbed another and gave it a twist; and 
another, and one more; and, standing near by, 



THE SEA BABIES 243 

we could hear — or thought we could — the in- 
rush of great waters. 

A man got to wondering then what would 
happen if this chap got his valves mixed. But 
a look around showed every lever and every 
valve, everything marked with its own name 
and number. Nothing was left unmarked — in 
deep-cut black lettering on brass plates gener- 
ally, but here and there colored-light signs, 
too. After another look at the multiplicity of 
them, almost any man would agree that it is a 
good scheme. 

But to get back: the tank man has done his 
part and our sub is sinking. There is no un- 
usual feeling to inform a man she is sinking. 
Only for the starting of the engines, the diving- 
rudder man getting busy, and the wide-faced 
gauge's long green finger beginning to walk 
around, a man who didn't know could easily 
believe that the sub was still tied up alongside 
her supply-ship. But the long green finger is 
walking, and marking 5 feet, 10 feet, II, 12, as 
it walks. At 16 feet the finger oscillates and 
stops, and to that depth our diving-rudder man 
holds her while she speeds on for a mile or so. 

That first little dash is by way of warming 



244 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

her up. The officer for whose government this 
submarine was built is aboard. He now asks 
for a torpedo demonstration. So two 1,500- 
pound dummy torpedoes are got ready, the 
breeches to two of the four forward tubes 
opened, the torpedoes slipped in, the breeches 
closed. The bow caps are then opened. 

The captain, during all this time, has never 
left the periscope, which — to have it explained 
and over with — is no more than a long telescope 
set on end, with a reflecting mirror top and 
bottom. From the lower end of the periscope 
project two brass arms, by means of which the 
skipper now swings the periscope all the way 
around. In this way he is able to look at any 
quarter of the sea he pleases. 

Running at the depth we were then, the peri- 
scope showing about six feet out of water, the 
captain at the periscope was, of course, the 
only man who could see anything outside of 
her. 

The captain gave the needful preliminary 
orders; and at the proper time, sighting through 
the periscope as he did so, he pressed the but- 
ton of a little arrangement which he held, half 
concealed, in the palm of his hand. There was 



THE SEA BABIES 245 

a soft explosion, a sort of woof ! — and a torpedo 
was on the way to a hypothetical enemy, with 
only the captain able to see that it reached its 
mark. 

As the torpedo left the sub the rudder man 
gave her a "down" rudder, which was to offset 
the tendency of the sub to shoot her nose to 
the surface; when the torpedo had gone the 
tank man turned on the air-pressure, which 
blew out what water had entered the torpedo 
chamber. By and by the other torpedo was 
fired. 

One reason for this trial run was to prove 
that she could run so many miles an hour 
under water by the power of her storage- 
batteries alone. And soon she went at that. 
And no mild racket inside her then; for a sub's 
engine power and space are out of all propor- 
tion to her tonnage. Not to decrease the noise, 
the man to whom the trial meant most was 
standing by with a stop-watch, and every half- 
minute or so he would yell at the top of his 
lungs, "Go !" or "Hold !" to the engineer, who 
was imprisoned in a narrow alleyway with en- 
gines to right and to left and below him. The 
engineer would look at a register and yell back 



246 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

at the manager, who would then set some figures 
in a book and rush over to the man who was 
reckoning up the decreasing or increasing am- 
peres or kilowatts or whatever they were of her 
storage-batteries, and set down more figures; 
and if the boss had to yell his head off to make 
himself heard, be sure that the others had to 
yell even louder. Only on trial trips, probably, 
where tests have to be proved, does all this 
yelling happen; but the total effect was to make 
a shore-goer feel, not as if he were in a ship 
under water, but rather in a subway section 
under construction, or some overdriven corner 
of some sort of night-working machine-shop, or 
some other homelike place ashore. The bright 
electric lights helped out the machine-shop illu- 
sion. 

For a time during the run the diving-rudder 
man had his troubles keeping her on a level, 
whereupon the skipper — an easy-going man 
ordinarily — jerked his head away from his 
periscope and had a peek for the reason. 
Through the forward bulkhead door he spied 
the torpedo man, who, feeling pleased, perhaps, 
at the successful execution of his part of the 
programme, was fox-trotting fore and aft for 



THE SEA BABIES 247 

himself in his section of the ship. "Would you 
mind picking out one spot and staying on it?" 
asked the skipper, at which the torpedo man 
took his camp-stool, picked out his one spot, 
and planted himself on it, and piously read the 
stock-market quotations of a week-old news- 
paper for the rest of the run. 

While this hour run — full speed, submerged 
— was in progress, a tickling in our throats set 
most of us to coughing. A naval constructor 
of note, who was also a shark on chemistry, 
explained how this coughing was not caused by 
the chill in the air, but by the particles of 
sulphuric acid thrown off by the action of 
the storage-batteries. These little particles, it 
seems, went travelling about in the air seeking 
a home — some place, any place where they 
could tuck in out of the way; but all the air 
homes being already occupied by other tenants 
— the usual ingredients or components of the 
air — they could find no place to butt in; and 
so they went around and about till innocent 
people like ourselves made a home for them 
by breathing them in out of the way. After 
which explanation — yelled above all the other 
noises — these sulphuric hoboes caused less sus- 



248 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

picion and discomfort. It was good to hear 
that what we were swallowing was not the 
chlorine of a hundred stories of fiction. 

The sub had now to prove her diving quali- 
ties. So tanks were blown out and up she 
went to the surface again; and there, while she 
was resting like a bird on the water, ballast- 
tanks were suddenly filled and down she went. 
Down, down, down she went — the long green 
finger on the broad-faced gauge walking around 
at a fine clip. Dropping so — on an even keel, 
by the way — she gave out no sense of action 
such as a man gets on an aeroplane. Flying 
around in the air, you see what's doing every 
second. If anything happens, you know you 
will see it coming, and — perhaps — going: your 
eyes, ears, brains, and nerves prove things to 
you. 

But action in a submarine lies largely in a 
man's imagination, unless he be the periscope 
man; and even there, when she is completely 
submerged, he sees no more than the others. 
However, a man did not need to have too much 
imagination to think of a few things as he 
looked at the long green finger walking around : 
30 feet, 40 feet, 50 feet — This particular ob- 



THE SEA BABIES 249 

server had no idea she could drop so fast; and 
as she dropped, he could not help wondering 
how deep the ocean was around there — this in 
case anything happened. Sixty feet, 70 feet — 
she was gathering great speed by then, but at 
82 feet she stopped — a pleasant thing to see. 
And then, maybe to show it was no accident, 
she did it all over again. Did we feel any 
difficulty in breathing during all this ? We did 
not, nor during the three to four hours we were 
under that morning. And let a man listen to 
these submarine enthusiasts telling how they 
can live three or four weeks on their compressed 
air, if they have to, without coming to the sur- 
face ! Only give them food enough, of course. 
And coffee — they have an electric range to 
make the coffee. As it happened, they made 
coffee for us — not that day, but next morning 
going home. It was good coffee. The 82-foot- 
drop stunts were done with each of the crew at 
his station, ready at any instant to check her. 
To meet the further requirements our sub 
had to rise to the top, fill her tanks, let herself 
go, and then, by an automatic safety device, 
fetch up all by herself. So the tank man ap- 
plied the air-pressure, blew his tanks free of all 



250 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

water, closed his outer valves and brought her 
up. She was now stretched out on the surface 
— not quite motionless, for the first of the 
breeze predicted the night before was on and 
we could feel that she was rolling a little. A 
peek through the periscope while she was up 
disclosed further evidence of the breeze — toss- 
ing white crests, two coasters hustling for har- 
bor under short sail, an inbound fisherman with 
reefed mainsail making great leaps for home. 
Looking through the periscope so, it was easy 
enough to understand the feeling of power 
which might well come to the master of a sub- 
marine in war time. The sub can be lying 
there — in dark or bright water will make no 
difference; on such a day no eye is going to 
discern the white bone of the moving periscope; 
and he can be standing there, with a quick peek 
now and then to see what is going on above 
him; and by and by she can come swinging 
along majestically in her arrogance and power 
— the greatest battleship afloat, with guns to 
level a great city, or the biggest and speediest 
ship ever built — and he can be there and when 
he gets good and ready — Woof! she's gone. 
War-ship or liner, she's gone and all aboard 



THE SEA BABIES 251 

gone with her; and the submarine skipper can 
go along about his business of getting the next 
one. 

However, the automatic device was set for 
action at the required depth and the word 
given. 

In this same middle compartment — the op- 
erating compartment of the ship — was a man 
with the spiritual face of one who keeps lonely, 
intense vigils. He sat on a camp-stool, and his 
business seemed to be not ever to let his rapt 
gaze wander from several rows of gauges which 
were screwed to the bulkhead before him. 
Since I first stepped down into the sub I had 
spotted him, and had been wondering if his 
ascetic look was born with him or was a de- 
velopment of his job — whatever his job might 
be. Now I learned what his job was. He was 
the man who stood by the automatic safety 
devices. If anything happened to the regular 
gadgets and it was life or death to get her at 
once to the surface, he was the man who 
pressed a button, or moved a switch, or in 
some highly mechanical way applied the mys- 
terious power which would get her safe to the 
surface. 



252 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

The skipper gave the word, the main ballast 
lad opened his outer valves, and down she 
started. We knew this, as always, by the 
moving green finger on the wide-faced gauge. 
Downward she kept on going, and to a man 
not too long shipmates with the creature she 
certainly did seem to be going down in a hurry. 
She was nearing the appointed depth; she made 
the appointed depth, and — went on by. 
"What's this!" said one observer to himself, 
and directed an interested eye toward the 
saint-like lad on the camp-stool. 

But it was only for a few feet. The indicator 
slacked up, fluttered, stopped dead. And then 
— without the husky tank boy to lift a finger — 
we heard the rumph-h and rumbling of the 
valve-seats as the sea-water was driven out of 
her ballast-tanks; and then up she started. 
Soon there she was — did it all by herself — atop 
of the water. And the face of the young fel- 
low of the automatic devices was like the face 
of the devout missionary who has just put 
something over on the heathen. 

Later, when you express the feeling of almost 
holy comfort which these little automatic 
safety devices give you, the manager — the 



THE SEA BABIES 253 

same with the stop-watch and the note-book — 
says, "Puh! Look here," and sits down and 
details — drawing good working plans of them 
on a pad while he talks — three different ways 
by which a submarine crew can beat the game 
should any evil happen the ordinary and regu- 
lar means of getting to the surface. 

She has a turn at porpoising then; that is 
from a moderate depth the diving-rudder man 
shoots her near enough to the surface for the 
captain to have a look through the periscope — 
a long-enough look to plot the enemy on a 
chart, but not long enough to give that enemy 
much of a chance to pick him up; and then 
under again. And then up for another peek; 
and quickly under again, the captain at the 
periscope taking each time a fresh bearing of 
the enemy, who is supposed to be at some dis- 
tance and steaming at good speed. After two 
or three such quick sights, changing course 
after each sight, it will be time to discharge a 
torpedo or two at her. And — the layman may 
note it — with expert men at the periscope and 
diving-rudder, a porpoising sub can sight, dis- 
charge her torpedo, and dive — all within five 
seconds. 



254 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

Steaming back to harbor after our trial run 
that day, we caught the first rip of the gale 
which the gummed-over moon and the low 
barometer had forecast the night before. It 
was too rough to tie her up to the supply-ship, 
so the sub was anchored — they carry anchors 
too — a short distance away, with three men 
left on her for an anchor watch, the idea being 
to take them off later for a hot meal. But 
after the rest of us were safe and warm and 
well fed aboard the mother ship, the increasing 
winds came bowling over the increasing seas, 
and the crew of the sub had to wait. 

At intervals we could hear them emitting be- 
seeching, doleful, disgusted moans and shrieks 
and howls from her air-whistle. But it was 
too rough for any little choo-choo boat to be 
battling around. It was 9.30 that night before 
they could safely be taken off. They were a 
moderately good-natured lot; but that was the 
blear-eyed trouble with making sub trial trips 
with bad weather coming on — a man never 
knew about his regular meals. 

The supply-ship was quite a little institution 
herself. Approaching her from shore the night 
before, her lights beneath the dull moon and 



THE SEA BABIES 255 

thin, drifting clouds had loomed up like a danc- 
ing-hall across the lonesome harbor waters. 
When we got aboard, we found her the relic of 
what had once been a fine block of a three- 
masted coaster; but moored forward and aft 
she was now, as if for all time, and no longer 
showing stout spars and weather-beaten canvas 
— nothing but two floors of white-painted 
boarding above her old bulwarks. 

She was a boarding-place, a sort of club, for 
the crew and attendants, as well as a supply 
station for the submarines which in these New 
England waters were being tried out for one of 
the warring Powers. Voices and cigar-smoke 
as we stepped aboard, and more or less quiet 
breathing, with partly closed and open living 
and sleeping rooms, denoted that men were 
discussing, arguing, sleeping, and otherwise 
passing a normal evening. Looking farther, 
we saw that down in the insides of her — where 
formerly she stowed noble freights of coal or 
lumber or, sometimes, hay and ice — were now 
a boiler and engine room, and a good, big repair- 
shop. 

This night, while the gale came howling and 
the sea rolling and the solid rain sweeping 



256 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

against the sober old sides of our supply-ship — 
on this night, the finest kind to be sitting in a 
warm cabin, we sat and, while the smoke rolled 
high, aired our views of the real things in the 
world; and the most real thing in the world 
just then being a submarine, we got this: 

"Danger? Of course, there's some danger. 
So is there danger in bank-fishing, in log-jam- 
ming down in Maine, in mining deep down, 
and in aeroplaning. 

"You want to get a sub right. A sub is a 
ship modelled different from most ships, of 
course, and built stronger to stand pressure, 
but only a ship, after all, with special tanks in 
her. She's on top of the water and wants to 
go down. Good. She fills her tanks and down 
she goes. She's down and wants to come up. 
All right. She empties her tanks and up she 
comes. She's got to. She couldn't stay down 
with her tanks empty if she wanted to — not 
unless she blew a hole in her side, or left her 
hatches open. 

"Of course if her tanks don't work right! 
But we showed you three different ways to-day 
how she can beat that game. And anyway, 
no matter what happens, unless you're cruising 



THE SEA BABIES 257 

deep, it's only a few feet to the top. Not like 
a crazy aeroplane a thousand feet up in the air ! 
Something happens in an aeroplane, and where 
are you ? With a busted stay or bamboo strut 
and you a mile in the air, where are you ? Vol- 
plane ? Maybe. But if you didn't — down 
you'd come atumbling like a hoop out of the 
clouds. That's 90 per cent — yes, maybe 99 
per cent — of the submarine game: See that 
everything is right mechanically with your 
sub, then get a competent crew and — well, 
you're ready." 

That is for the submariner's point of view. 
As for the danger from a shore-goer's point of 
view: Ashore we make the mistake, perhaps, 
of thinking of a submarine as a heavy, logy body 
fighting always for her life beneath an un- 
friendly ocean; whereas she is a light-moving 
easily controlled creature cruising in a rather 
friendly element. 

The ocean is always trying to lift her atop 
and not hold her under water. A submarine 
could be sent under with a positive buoyancy 
so small — that is, with so little more than enough 
in her tanks to sink her — that an ordinary man 
standing on the sea bottom could catch her as 






258 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

she came floating down and bounce her up and 
off* merely by the strength of his arms. Con- 
sider a submarine under water as we would a 
toy balloon in the air, say. Weight that toy 
balloon so that it just falls to earth. Kick that 
toy balloon and what does it do ? Doesn't it 
bounce along, and after a few feet fall easily 
down again, and up and on and down again ? 

Picture a strong wind driving that toy bal- 
loon along the street, and the balloon, as it 
bumps along, meeting an obstacle: Will the 
balloon smash itself against the obstacle, or 
what will it do ? What that balloon does is 
pretty much what a submarine would do if, 
while running along full speed under water, 
she suddenly ran into shoal water. She would 
go bumping along on the bottom; and, meeting 
an obstacle, if not too high, she would be more 
likely to bounce over it than to smash herself 
against it. 

But sometimes they do run into things and 
fetch up ? 

That is right, they do. Let our naval men 
tell of the old C plunger — the first class of sub 
in our navy — which hit an excursion steamer 
down the James River way one time. She was 



THE SEA BABIES 259 

a wooden steamer about 150 feet long, and the 
C's bow went clear through the steamer's sides. 
The steamer's engineer was sitting by his levers, 
reading the sporting page of his favorite daily, 
when he heard a crash and found himself on the 
engine-room floor. Looking around, he saw a 
wedge of steel sticking through the side of his 
ship. He did not know what it was, but he 
could see right away it didn't have a friendly 
look; so he hopscotched across the engine-room 
floor and up a handy ladder to the deck, taking 
his assistant along in his wake. After rescuing 
the passengers it took three tugboats to pry 
sub and steamer apart. 

Our C boat must have hit her a pretty good 
wallop, for as they fell apart the steamer sank. 
They ran the little old C up to the navy-yard 
to see how much she was damaged. Surely 
after that smash she must be shaken up— her 
bow torpedo-tubes at least must be out of align- 
ment ! But not a thing wrong anywhere; they 
didn't even have to put her in dry dock. Out 
and about her business she went next morning. 
Later another of the same class came nosing 
up out of the depths, and bumped head on and 
into a breakwater down that same country — 



2 6o THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

a solid stone wall of a breakwater. What did 
she do ? She bounced off, and, after a look 
around, also went on about her business. 

In the morning our sub upanchored for her 
run across the open bay. On the conning-tower 
was rigged a little bridge of slim brass stanch- 
ions and thin wire-rope rail, with the canvas as 
high as a man's chin for protection; and away 
she went in a wind that was still blowing hard 
enough to drive home-bound Gloucester fisher- 
men down to storm trysails and sea enough to 
jump an out-bound destroyer of a thousand 
tons under easy steam to her lower plates 
whenever she lifted forward. 

There was not a soul standing around on the 
main deck of the destroyer as we passed her, 
nor on her high forward turtle-deck, which was 
being washed clean; and surely not much com- 
fort being bounced around on transoms in that 
destroyer below, nor too much dryness on her 
flying bridge. And yet here was our little sub 
— full speed and all — heading straight into high- 
curling seas and making fine weather of it. 

Plunging her bow under, and through she'd 
go; and when she did the seas would go swash- 



THE SEA BABIES 261 

ing up atop of her make-believe deck and come 
rolling down her round-top plates and squishing 
through the hundreds of round holes in her 
deck sides. But steady ? Up on her little 
bridge we did not half the time have to hold 
on to her little steel-rope rail lines to keep our 
balance. She kept on going, hooked-up all the 
way, seas and wind and all to hinder her, and 
finished her five-hour run without so much 
as wetting our coat fronts up on the conning- 
tower bridge. A great little sea boat — a sub- 
marine. 

Now for the personnel of the crew. The crew 
of the sub described were not sailors. The cap- 
tain was an old seagoer — yes; and it would be 
a safe guess that the diving-rudder man had a 
seagoing experience; and one other perhaps; 
but the fellows who stood by the other things 
below came straight from the boat works. 
They had helped, most of them, to build her: 
which was one good reason for having them 
along on her trial trip. 

And there are thousands of young fellows 
working around garages and in machine-shops 
and electric-light plants ashore who are the 
very men needed for submarines. There will 



262 THE U-BOAT HUNTERS 

always have to be a sailor or two in a sub- 
marine; or there should be, for a real sailor is 
always a handy man to have around — he knows 
things that nobody else knows. 

And so, if hanging around there are any 
young fellows with a taste for adventure and 
a trend for naval warfare, these submarines 
look to be the thing. They are only little fel- 
lows now, and, as they stand to-day, limited as 
to range and power of offense, but stay by and 
grow up with them, and by and by be with 
them when they will be as big as the battleships 
and of a radius of action that will stretch from 
here to — well, as far as they like; drawing their 
energy from the sun above them, or the sea- 
tides about them, and not having to see enemy 
ships to be able to fight them — equipped with 
devices not now invented but which will serve 
to feel those other ships and, feeling them, to 
plot their direction and distance! 

Imagine a fleet of those lads battling under 
water some day — allowing no surface craft to 
live — feeling each other out and plotting direc- 
tion and distance as they feel, and then letting 
go broadsides of torpedoes ten or a hundred 
times as powerful as anything we now have; 



THE SEA BABIES 263 

and at the same time the air full of war-planes 
battling above them. 

Infants, sea babies, is what they are to-day. 
But wait till they grow up ! 



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